Tie-up with Acorns is first step for a PFM service with big plans

The microinvesting app provider Acorns has partnered with Clarity Money, which offers a personal finance management app, so that customers of either can use both services.

Through the partnership, Clarity Money customers can use Acorns’ automated investing features, while Acorns investors are able to see a snapshot of their investing activity in the Clarity Money app.

Clarity Money, which launched last year, allows customers to aggregate their bank accounts, analyze their financial habits and make suggestions to save money. Clarity is one of a number of free savings apps in the market, but has plans to go beyond its initial service and offer its users access to financial products through partnerships such as the one with Acorns, said Colin Kennedy, chief revenue officer at Clarity Money.

“Absolutely, we’re on the road to offer more financial products, and one way we’re doing that is this partner approach,” he said.

The partnership has been in effect for six days, and Kennedy said user adoption has already exceeded expectation.

“The number of users opening [Acorns] accounts has already exceeded in the first week what we projected for the first month,” he added.

Clarity Money’s user base will also have access to Acorns’ rewards program, Found Money. Launched in May 2016, the Found Money program invests up to 10% of a user’s purchase with a partner retail brand into their Acorns account.

Clarity Money was founded by Adam Dell, brother of Dell Technologies CEO Michael Dell.