November 19, 2009 in Blog, Project Updates by Ryan

Pitched the project at Waterloo StartupCamp

Yesterday night I presented this project idea at Waterloo StartupCamp. It starts out with people putting up ideas for presentation on a whiteboard. We each talk for 30 seconds. Then attendees would then vote on which ones they wanted to hear.

My 30 second pitch was like this:

Hello, I am Ryan Chen-Wing. We want to start co-operative student-run financial services for students. There would be three main benefits. One, student staff would have an amazing experience. Two, students could use financial services that not only save them money, but make them money. Three, students would be educated about personal financial management. I want to get ideas for possible innovative financial products that make sense for students and would be pleased to answer your questions. So, please vote for me.

Out of 12 ideas, I was voted tied for seventh.

Then when it was my turn to give my five minutes, I said:

So, our project name is Waterloo Banking Project. In offering the services of a deposit-taking institution there are two possible was to set up. One is to get a charter independently and the other is to operate in partnership with an existing credit union. An example of the first one is at Georgetown University which is entirely student run and they control $10 million in assets. Examples of the partnership model exist in the student caisse system mainly in Quebec where high school groups operate a student branch of a local caisse
populaire or credit union.

We see four main keys to success in our operations: cultivating a good partnership, raising capital from sponsors and from alumni, developing the students staff and building the organization, and attracting
students as customers.

So, I’d like to get ideas for products and answer your questions. We expect to offer a full suite of products like chequing accounts and savings accounts, credit cards and things like that, but we also want
to have products that make sense for students. I’ll give you an example:

There are many students in co-op at Waterloo. About half of them in any given year will have two co-op work terms and may end up owing some income tax. But under the lifelong learning plan funds only have
to be in a registered plan for three months before they can be withdrawn to pay tuition. So, we could set it up that in September of the year to put savings for tuition in an RRSP. In December they can withdraw it to pay tuition, just as they would from their savings account, but come tax time they would get more of a rebate.

So, that’s something that gives the student more money for switching to us. So, that’s it. The project is called Waterloo Banking Project and our website is waterloobanking.com. That’s our project blog.

Then I got questions about stability, revenue model, and alumni retention. I also got suggestions like bidding to be provider of the alumni credit card.

After the event more people talked to me including designers, a guy suggesting a training program, and someone suggesting places to look for similar models.

update: A friend pointed out that the registered plan idea wouldn’t work as described. Since lifelong learning plan is a loan and doesn’t give additional deduction, in many cases it would be better to save your deductions for when your income is higher.