Forest Saving: Save Money, Save the Planet

Banks are inflating their profits through not passing on the returns from higher interest rates to deposit holders. This is benefitting banks shareholders and employees (via bonuses) over retails depositors. A savings review by the FCA including an estimation from the Bank of England that £250bn in retail deposits were earning no interest, and that the 5 major high-street banks held over £260bn earning less than 1%.

Forest Saving allows savers to forego interest earned on their savings and to channel this money to a charity of their choosing. It takes advantage of the emergence of 'embedding' savings products - a product that allows a third-party bank account to be opened and controlled through an app/website. In this case we plan to wrap a workflow around the embedded savings product so that interest can be apportioned to charity, with the impact shown within the app environment. This is a product specifically designed for the UK retail savings market, and discussions have been held with UK charity partners. A review of the business model is also being conducted from a UK regulatory perspective.

The primary aim of this project is to open up a new funding stream for the UK charity sector, specifically conservation charities. My modelling is working on the basis of 1% of all interest earned on deposits being apportioned to a charity partner. A target of £100m in deposits could be achievable in 12-18 months, which would mean £1m going towards conservation efforts. The product could become much larger/mainstream with the UK savings industry in the region of £1.5trillion. Secondary aims would be to encourage a culture of building an account holders' own financial resilience by making regular savings into the account for their own benefit, and for this savings product to act as a 'gateway' product for savers to become more aware of money as a force for change (potentially leading to other further opportunities to introduce impact investments).