Owed

Inspiration

Millions of UK households are struggling with the rising cost of living, yet many are unaware of the financial support available to them. People miss out on benefits, council tax reductions, social tariffs and other schemes simply because the system is difficult to navigate. At the same time, households often lose money through unnecessary subscriptions, outdated contracts and avoidable expenses.

We wanted to build something that tackles a problem beyond simply helping people track their spending. What if an application could actively identify money people are entitled to but aren't claiming, highlight where they're overpaying, and help them take action?

That idea became Owed.

What it does

Owed is an AI-powered household financial intelligence platform that helps people find money they're missing out on and stop losing money unnecessarily.

Rather than just showing users where their money goes, Owed helps them understand where it could be going further.

Its core features include:

Financial Dashboard: A central overview of household finances, potential savings and opportunities.
My Money: Understand income, spending patterns, recurring payments and subscriptions.
Find My Money: Identify potential eligibility for support schemes such as Universal Credit, Council Tax Reduction, Warm Home Discount, Healthy Start and local council schemes.
Stop Overpaying: Highlight recurring expenses, potentially unnecessary subscriptions and opportunities to reduce household costs.
Missing Money Map: Explore geographical patterns in unclaimed financial support and identify areas where households may be missing out.
Financial Time Travel: Explore how potential savings and additional financial support could affect household finances over the next 6–24 months.
Claim With Me: Guide users through the process of understanding and preparing applications for financial support.

Owed doesn't just tell people what they're spending. It helps them discover what they're entitled to and what they can do about it.

How we built it

We approached Owed as a combination of financial data analysis, eligibility intelligence and an accessible user interface.

Our development was divided across three main areas:

Backend and financial data: Krishay worked on the backend infrastructure, database architecture and financial data integration.
Frontend and product experience: Riddhiman worked on the application interface, dashboard, information architecture and overall user experience.
Intelligence and recommendations: Shiven focused on the eligibility engine, AI-powered explanations and financial recommendations.

The platform is designed around structured financial information and rules-based eligibility checks, with AI used to explain findings in accessible language and help users understand their options.

We also considered how to make the platform useful without requiring users to connect their bank accounts, including alternative data-entry approaches.

Challenges we ran into

One of our biggest challenges was deciding what a financial intelligence platform should actually do.

It would have been relatively straightforward to build another expense tracker or budgeting dashboard. However, that would have missed the problem we originally wanted to solve.

We had to think about how to translate complicated eligibility criteria, government support schemes and household financial information into something understandable and actionable.

Other challenges included:

Making financial recommendations useful without presenting estimates as guaranteed savings.
Distinguishing between verified financial information, modelled estimates and illustrative data.
Designing an eligibility system that relies on structured rules rather than allowing an AI model to make unsupported decisions.
Balancing a broad product vision with what could realistically be implemented during a hackathon.
Making a complex financial platform feel approachable rather than overwhelming.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We're particularly proud that Owed goes beyond the conventional idea of personal finance software.

Instead of building something that simply visualises spending, we designed a platform around identifying missed financial opportunities and helping people act on them.

We're also proud of bringing together several different areas into one product: financial data, eligibility intelligence, geographical insights and forward-looking financial projections.

Most importantly, we've built the foundation for a product that addresses a genuine problem affecting millions of households across the UK.

What we learned

We learned that having access to financial data is only part of the problem. The real challenge is turning that information into something people can actually use.

We also learned the importance of separating deterministic calculations from AI-generated explanations, particularly when dealing with financial information that can affect people's lives.

From a development perspective, we gained experience working across different parts of a full-stack product, integrating multiple systems and making decisions about what to prioritise under significant time constraints.

Perhaps our biggest takeaway was that good financial technology shouldn't just help people manage the money they already have. It should help them discover money and support they didn't know they could access.

What's next for Owed

We want to take Owed beyond the hackathon prototype and develop it into a platform that can genuinely help UK households.

Our next priorities are:

Reliable financial connectivity: Develop secure Open Banking integrations to give users a more complete picture of their finances.
Expand eligibility intelligence: Build a more comprehensive database of national and local financial support schemes, with regularly updated eligibility rules.
Personalised recommendations: Make recommendations increasingly relevant to individual household circumstances.
Geographical insights: Expand the Missing Money Map using aggregated regional information to highlight gaps in access to financial support.
Guided applications: Develop Claim With Me to help users understand requirements, prepare documents and navigate application processes.
Long-term financial modelling: Make Financial Time Travel more sophisticated, allowing households to explore how different decisions could affect their financial position.

Our long-term vision is simple: Owed should become the place people turn to not just to understand their finances, but to discover what they're missing out on.