Bud has announced a partnership with the student financial wellbeing platform Blackbullion. Using Bud’s assess and engage solutions, Blackbullion will attempt to make it easier and faster for students in need to apply for additional funding. This includes support funds, scholarships and grants from their place of study and third-party organisations.

Blackbullion will also integrate Bud’s deep financial insights into the first financial literacy and wellbeing app built for students, to equip students with the money management skills they need to gain control of their financial lives.

Eligible students can apply for these directly through the Blackbullion platform. This process requires students to submit bank statement-related evidence, as proof of their eligibility, which has historically required long and laborious manual downloading of bank transactions, which are both time-consuming and limiting and can often mean students wait months to receive funds. This adds significant pressure to students who are already feeling stressed by their financial situation.

Bud’s solution saving time and energy

Using Bud’s assess solution, Blackbullion is giving students the option to connect their bank account to their application so this evidence can be automatically pulled in. This saves the student significant stress and time. Meaning they can now provide this evidence in just three to five minutes, whereas it was previously taking an average of 40 minutes per bank account.

It also saves Blackbullion’s staff time by reducing the need for back-and-forth communication with students if something is missing from this evidence being provided manually. So far, 9 out of 10 students who have been offered the option to use Bud’s Open Banking to provide this evidence automatically have chosen to do so.

In addition, Bud is also supporting Blackbullion to drive efficiency in its personal finance app designed specifically for students. The Blackbullion app is a personalised budgeting tool designed to help students put their financial skills into practice and make their money last until the end of the term. It uses Bud’s open banking and transactional AI solution to project students’ future finances based on their current trajectory.

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According to Blackbullion’s Student Money & Wellbeing Report for 2023, 40% of students are worried that money is negatively impacting their optimism about the future. The biggest concern is the rising cost of living, with 78% of students showing grave concern. Blackbullion is now embedding Bud’s advanced AI and data enrichment capabilities to generate superior and more accurate spending insights, encouraging students to build financial literacy and resilience.

Blackbullion works with some of the UK’s top universities, such as the London School of Economics, Imperial College, the University of Reading, and Liverpool John Moores, supporting both their staff and their students.