Inspiration
With the rising cost of living, millions of households live paycheque to paycheque, vulnerable to sudden financial shocks, expensive bills, and high-interest debt traps. Traditional banking apps excel at displaying retrospective spending charts and transaction histories, but they rarely offer proactive guidance to improve everyday financial resilience before problems strike.
Built for the NatWest Financial Fairness & Social Mobility challenge, we wanted to build a practical, accessible financial resilience tool that turns passive budgeting into active empowerment—helping users unlock hidden savings, smooth payday mismatches, and build long-term stability.
What it does
Our Financial Resilience & Time Travel Tool guides users through a quick, 3-minute financial review and acts as an interactive financial coach:
- Resilience Scorecard: Calculates an objective 0–100 Financial Resilience Score evaluating cashflow margins, emergency buffer runway, debt risk (credit cards and Buy-Now-Pay-Later), and payday timing mismatches.
- Essential Bill & Social Tariff Optimizer: Automatically identifies eligibility for regulated UK social tariffs and partner discounts—such as Vodafone Essentials (£12/mo broadband), WaterSure (50% water bill reduction), and below-price-cap green energy—freeing up tangible monthly cash without compromising living standards.
- Financial Time Travel & Shock Simulator: Projects household finances across 1, 3, 6, 12, 24, and 36-month horizons. Users can toggle between their status-quo baseline, a disciplined savings plan, and an accelerated path powered by bill switches, while testing their resilience against simulated real-world emergencies (e.g. an unexpected £350 car or appliance repair).
- AI Financial Wellbeing Coach (Powered by Gemini): Sends the user's verified metrics to Google Gemini via a structured, ethical UK financial coaching pipeline to generate plain-English, prioritized next steps, key assumptions to check, and actionable questions to consider.
- Tailored Product Pathways: Connects users with relevant support, such as high-interest ring-fenced savings (NatWest Digital Regular Saver at 6.17% AER), micro-saving round-ups, student accounts, and confidential debt relief hubs.
How we built it
- Frontend: Built with Next.js (App Router), React 19, and TypeScript, styled using Tailwind CSS styled after NatWest's digital design system, and enhanced with Lucide Icons and celebratory animations.
- Forecasting & Resilience Engine: A deterministic client-side calculation engine that models cashflow surpluses, compound interest, emergency runways, and multi-tier scenario trajectories against unexpected life shocks.
- Ethical AI Integration: A secure server-side Next.js API route (
/api/financial-advice) integrating Google Gemini (gemini-2.5-flash) using strict JSON schemas. The coach is prompt-engineered with UK regulatory guardrails: it validates surplus before recommending savings, prioritizes essential arrears, treats switching savings as unverified until realized, and focuses purely on educational guidance rather than speculative investment advice.
Challenges we faced
- Balancing Guidance with Regulatory Ethics: Financial advice is strictly regulated in the UK. We had to carefully architect our Gemini system instructions and JSON response schema to ensure the AI acts as an encouraging, supportive coach that highlights practical steps and independent debt charities (e.g. StepChange/Citizens Advice) without overstepping into regulated financial advice or hallucinating guaranteed returns.
- Real-World Cashflow Nuances: Reflecting genuine social mobility barriers required factoring in payday frequency mismatches (weekly vs. monthly pay cycles leading to direct debit overdraft fees) and Buy-Now-Pay-Later debt pressures.
- Rapid Prototyping: Delivering a full end-to-end flow—from multi-step questionnaire and interactive timeline graphs to live Gemini API integration and full NatWest design parity—within the tight time limits of a hackathon.
What we learned
- Meaningful financial inclusion isn't about telling people to cut small luxuries; it's about uncovering systemic structural savings (like social broadband and water tariffs) that instantly free up disposable income for vulnerable households.
- Grounding generative AI with strict structured schemas and deterministic calculation engines produces far more reliable, trustworthy, and actionable advice than freeform chatbots.
What's next
- Open Banking Integration: Connect directly to bank accounts via Open Banking APIs to auto-categorize spending, detect recurring subscription price hikes, and flag upcoming payday overdraft risks in real time.
- One-Click Social Tariff Applications: Partner directly with utility and broadband providers to verify eligibility and switch tariffs automatically without tedious manual paperwork.
- Goal-Based Gamification: Expand the shock simulator with customized savings milestones (such as tenancy deposits or vocational training funds) to actively track social mobility progress over time.
