The $11 million Brooklyn Cooperative FCU has received a $300,000grant from the Center for Financial Services Innovation to helpdevelop the financial institution interface for a social networksavings program.

Once successful, the interface promises to make the programtechnically available to many other credit unions and may allowthem to offer it to their members.

The program is called Piggymojo and its designed to both makesaving money subject to some of the same impulses that tend tofavor spending and to make money a topic of more cooperation thancontention for couples.

“We like Piggymojo for a couple of reasons,” explained BrooklynCooperative CEO Samira Rajan. “First, it brings the powerful socialnetworking dynamic to savings, a place where it really has not beenas much before and it also helps make money something couples andfamilies discuss and where they can find common ground.”

The credit union also likes Piggymojo because its primarycommunications media are Twitter or text programs. This putsPiggymojo squarely in the center of a technology that some of thecommunity development credit union's members are already using,Rajan added.

Piggymojo makes savings a matter for cooperation by urging usersto sign up as couples or families and by urging users to designateother friends or family members as cheerleaders for the savingsefforts. The program uses the Twitter or text message technology tobring savings into the realm of impulse action, a behaviorcurrently dominated by spending.

For example, a couple might decide to make their savings morecooperative if they decided to stop arguing about money and toinstead decide on a savings goal they can both support, a vacationor down payment on a house for example. If the amount they decideto save for vacation over the course of a year is $2,000 andcalculate they will need to save roughly $40 per week.

After registering with Piggymojo and giving their mobile phonenumbers, they are each able to text the site to reflect theirsavings activity, such as forgoing an coffee out or walking tosomething rather than taking a cab and how much money they saved bydoing that. The site then adds that amount to their savings totaland texts the partner about the savings, spurring them in turn tofind a savings opportunity.

For example, Jim is at the movies with his buddies. While hisfriends are lined up for popcorn and soda, he decides to pass onthe treats and sends a text message to Piggymojo. In the Piggymojoformat, the message says “$7 no movie treats” Piggymojo then sendsJim's wife, Della, a message: “Jim just made a good save! '$7 nomovie treats'. And you? You have $15 left to go.”

Della's phone buzzes with the message from Piggymojo while sheis shopping for winter boots. She reads that Jim has saved $7toward their emergency fund and that she has $15 left to meet herweekly savings goal. She picks a pair of cheaper boots than she hadoriginally planned on and puts the $12 difference toward theirshared goal of an emergency fund. She texts Piggymojo: “$12 cheaperboots.” Jim immediately receives news of her savings. In this wayeach save creates momentum.

Currently, this is the extent of Piggymojo's ability. To reallyfulfill their savings goals, once or twice a week Jim or Della hasto log into their individual or joint online banking site andmanually move the money from checking into the savings vehicle theyare using.

This is a program weakness because the impulse saving is notreally an impulse savings if it doesn't happen immediately. And itis the weakness that the CUs work should help overcome, Rajanexplained.

Brooklyn Cooperative's grant will help defray the cost ofintegrating Piggymojo into the credit union's core processingsystem so that, in the future, when someone texts their savings tothe site, they will also effectively move that amount of money froma checking account to a savings account.

“With this grant we get to take a huge step forward,” saidRajan. “Users will be able to link their checking and savingsaccounts to Piggymojo so that when they make an impulse save themoney moves from their checking account into their savings account.Not only does this make an impulse save more satisfying, it makesthe savings real: Jim and Della's emergency fund will grow witheach save they make.”

“Our goal with the grant was to be able to offer Piggymojoservice to our members as well as maybe to use it to introduce morepeople to the CU. We are very excited about this very cool idea,”Rajan said.