With the launch of its Android app this week, Plum extended its existing digital offering across iOS and Facebook Messenger to plough toward its objective of two million UK customers by the end of 2020. It expects that the new app will increase new monthly users by 40%.

While Plum’s original Facebook Messenger chatbot will remain, the new app also provides a chat system so that customers who are unable or reluctant to connect through Facebook aren’t compelled to.

Existing Plum investors European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and VentureFriends joined Christian Faes of LendInvest to complete this second tranche, the first round having totalled at $4.5 million in May this year.

The firm has also scooped £50,000 in prize money as one of 15 finalists for UK innovation agency Nesta's £1.5 million Open Banking startup challenge.

The Plum app uses a mixture of gamification gimmicks and a host of savings rules to help users meet their savings goals.

Two of Plum’s recently launched intelligent saving rules, the 52 Week Challenge (which the firm claims can help users save £1367 over a year) and the Rainy Day Rule (which puts aside money when it rains), automatically direct users’ funds into savings accounts.

Expanding to target European nations with poor savings rates, CEO & co-founder, Victor Trokoudes says: “Until now we have been focused on the UK but the Brits are not the only people who are struggling to save and grow their money. Our sights are firmly set on Europe; in Spain, for example, a quarter of the population don’t have any savings at all.

"We plan to help these people by investing heavily in our product to make it as useful as possible. We have hired a behavioural scientist to ensure that the new features we’re building are trail-blazing and informed by actual human behaviour rather than industry assumptions.”