London-based Emma Technologies, which calls itself the "banking app for millennials", has today won approval from the City watchdog to provide payment services.
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) gave the nod to the mobile-only app just over a month after it launched its beta service, helping consumers avoid overdrafts, find and cancel subscriptions and track debt with the aim of saving money.
Emma also revealed it will be integrating challenger banks including Revolut and Monzo into its interface.
"We started developing Emma on a mission to improve people’s financial well being. We are thrilled to announce the FCA has given us full permission to achieve our goal," said Emma's co-founder Antonio Marino.
Emma, which is an anagram of the initials of its founders (Marino and Edoardo Moreni, who met at the University of Manchester) should now be able to take advantage of the UK's new Open Banking initiative.
Read more: Open Banking explained: Everything you need to know about the initiative but were afraid to ask
Stemming from the updated Payment Services Directive (PSD2), open banking is designed to promote competition in the sector by forcing banks to allow challengers secure access to their customer details.
"Our goal is to build a private wealth manager, an artificial intelligence that sits between our users and their financial services with the aim of helping," said Moreni.
The business has so far been funded without external help, and according to the founders has attracted "thousands" of users already.
Read more: Digital challenger bank Revolut just sailed past one million customers
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