[App Friday] Jupiter offers good neobanking services but is riddled with glitches

Neobanking startups use apps to deliver financial services to their users, and this industry has been booming as an outcome of the pandemic amid increased digitisation. As more people become increasingly comfortable with online transactions and gain financial literacy, they look for better banking services. This is where neobanks step in to fill the gap. 

“Neobanks have found untapped opportunities in various customer segments, including people living in Tier-II and III areas as well as digital millennials,” says a PwC report released in September 2021.

To tap into millennials, as well as small and medium businesses, many startups have introduced neobanking and credit disbursing tools. These include Bengaluru-based banking solution Fi.Money, NIYO SOLUTIONS, which is backed by Prime Venture Partners, and Suman Gandham-led Open. 

Another such startup is Sequoia Capital India-backed Jupiter, which was founded by Jitendra Gupta. He founded Citrus Pay and sold it to Prosus-owned PayU for $130 million in 2016, which was the largest fintech exit at the time.

After the exit, the entrepreneur wanted to do more in the startup ecosystem.

“There was this feeling that I had not created anything large and impactful even after being in the startup ecosystem for 10 years. I felt restless,” he told YourStory in an earlier interview.

So, he founded neobanking startup Jupiter in 2019 and formally launched its fully digital banking app in October this year, after being in beta since June 2021. The app, which majorly targets millennials, currently has over 500,000 downloads with a 4.6 rating on Google Play Store. 

How does it work?

Run by Amica Financial Technologies Pvt Ltd., Jupiter can be downloaded from the Play Store or Apple App Store. Once downloaded, the app asks for your phone number that is linked to your Aadhar card. You will get a quirky invite from Jupiter, which looks like a boarding pass, inviting you to enter the world of Jupiter. 

The app also asks for many permissions, including access to location, sending and viewing SMS messages and calls, etc. 

ALSO READ

Ex-Google employees launch neobanking app Fi targeted at millennials

Jupiter has partnered with Federal Bank where a user essentially opens an account when using the neobanking app. For opening the bank account, the app also has a step for eKYC, where you have to enter your PAN card number and then the Aadhar card. 

Once these details are verified, the account is activated and starts functioning almost immediately as the app claims. Jupiter has an orange and white user interface, with your name appearing on the top-most bar, and has a Christmas greeting since the festival is just around the corner. Jupiter also integrates all your other bank accounts and reflects your total balance on the top part of the screen. 

ALSO READ

Neobanking startup Walrus aims to help the ‘Instagram generation’ learn financial management

The app also even lets users take screenshots due to security reasons. Depositing money and making payments is also quite hassle-free. To deposit money, all you need to do is click on the deposit money button and it connects it to your other account, which has activated UPI (Unified Payments Interface). Payments can be made by clicking on a barcode icon, which keeps bobbing up and down on the bottom centre of the screen. 

The neobanking app also almost instantly provides you with a virtual card for making online payments. A physical card can also be ordered, which gets delivered in about a week to 10 days. 

Your expenses are also recorded and divided into different categories, with also a few analyses about your expense patterns and how much money has been spent. 

It also offers ‘pots’ where you can set different financial goals, such as saving up for studies or a trip. Setting up these pots requires video verification, which this writer couldn’t accomplish due to certain glitches in the app. 

Verdict

Overall, Jupiter is an extremely useful app. This was this writer’s first neobanking experience and things were usually quite smooth. The best feature of the app is the financial analysis, which provides users with information around mutual funds and gold investments, among other things. 

But Jupiter is not perfect. The app had many glitches, even when this writer was trying to sign in. It lags at times and the physical card wasn't able to perform a transaction once.  

If the app doesn’t open and you have no cash on you, then you cannot do any transaction, which makes you dependent on other apps, physical cards from banks, or withdrawing cash.