bunq Together

New Balance Predictor - Savings Goal bug (?)

Sayon

So it seems that bunq has refreshed and polished the balance predictor feature. Something I would like to point out - if the devs missed it or if it is a bug - in my savings goal prediction, it shows that (bunq is predicting) that my goal balance will decrease by a few euros (not all) in a few days and again increase and again decrease. Whereas the entire point of a savings goal is that either I can withdraw all my funds, or none. So my savings goal account balance decreasing by a few euros is not possible. I know that the ML bunq is using for this - you need to acquire more data to be more accurate and this is not a deal-breaker in any way, but would still like it if the devs can tweak this into consideration.

JohnDo

Sayon Hi 👋🏼 Sayon,

My experience with this features isn't that good... and the renewed version doesn't seem to make things better. In my personal experience the predictions are often not even close to the reality.

A basic example:

After the new version of the feature this account just simply flatlines for no reason (more accounts actually).

But wait.. when I scroll a bit back and forward... a more alive line appears... so that seems like a bug. I have reported that one.

More importantly...
The graph shows a slight increase around the 25th.... Well, this account always get automatically filled on the 25th of each month with a fixed amount. But even this very predictable fix pattern isn't picked up by this feature.

bunq promotes this as a feature that will give you insight to help you make better choices. Well, I hate to say it, but I would never trust this graph enough to make financial choices during the month. This is just one example.

So, I hope the revamped version of this feature still has to wake up and maybe it will soon show something useful. But till then, I don't use this.

To end more positive: look the idea 💡 though.. and from a graphical standpoint it is well designed.

Jakob-Y

Sayon So my savings goal account balance decreasing by a few euros is not possible

It is possible. Just go to "Pay", select the amount, and then on the last screen set your savings account as originating account. The UI makes it a bit harder, but you can use a savings account exactly the same as a regular account, so that's why I think the algorithm doesn't differentiate between the two. (Also you could connect a card to the savings account and buy something for less than the total amount of money in it.)

And I have the same situation as John here. My graph is just flat lines now. Before it wouldn't understand when I get and spend money, now it doesn't understand that I sometimes earn money at all :-P Or maybe it needs to "re-learn" now. Let's hope it's the latter.

Sayon

John Do I completely agree with you John. I would too never rely on this, not even a bit - but it does look good to know oh my balance will increase in a few weeks! It is more of a fun widget than a feature, I would say. But if you are doing it - then do it properly. Also to note, my salary comes in the same day every month and I have it sorted into my various sub-accounts (x eur to groceries. y eur to holidays etc) but somehow, that jump is never shown on the graph. It does show on my main account by a little bit, but as I have programmed it inside bunq to sort out my salary, then can probably do that into my various sub-accounts as well. Food for thought.

But I do like the idea to provide an insight to it. Maybe with future updates it will get better. Maybe Update 14 has something in store for us, who knows!

Sayon

Jakob Thanks for the tip Jakob! It did not know that was possible. I always thought you can only withdraw all the funds at once.

Sayon

This is a reply to bunq's thread: https://together.bunq.com/d/29992-bunq-tips-find-out-how-you-can-save-money-in-a-fun-and-easy-way

While I love Savings Goal feature in bunq and I actively use it, bunq claims "In order to keep you from using money from your Savings Goal for other purposes, you’re only able to withdraw all money, or nothing at all. We want you to reach your goals, as fast as possible!" And although I love the idea of this, but this has been pointed out to me previously, notably by Jakob in here: https://together.bunq.com/d/28959-new-balance-predictor-savings-goal-bug/3 that it is still possible to pay a with this Savings Goal IBAN, and also assign a card to it and use at as a normal bank account, which kind of defeats the purpose of the goal assigned. Is this by design, or is it a bug? I tried in V3 and you are still able to do all of it.

Hemmik

I love the idea of the balance predictor but so far it’s not been that great as it was never really accurate. I was happy to read that you updated the algorithm and was hoping for improvements. I was surprised however to see that events that have happened every month on the same day for some years now are not even predicted. How is this possible? Is the new algorithm enabled? This seems like a fairly straightforward event to predict.

pbruins84

Sayon You can also connect your card to a savings goal, and pay with it.

arne-from-iliades

The new algorithm "predicts" non-existing account balances in the past 🤔
Or does it actually creates an alternative dimension, like a "Schrödinger's bunq" 😂

R

I’m not really sure what has changed regarding the balance predictions, and if it may needs some time to adjust, but for me the balance prediction is still very bad unfortunately...

My girlfriend and I both sent the same amount of money to a shared account every month. The day may vary one or two days, but it generally is somewhere between the 23-26th day of the month. If I look in the graph, it does not recognize this, even tho this transaction takes place every single month... the same goes for outgoing transactions: we have a number of subscriptions (electricity, internet etc) that are the same every month, but it cannot predict these for some reason.

I think bunq should strongly simplify the graph. Other banks like ING do this well: they simply show which payments are expected in the coming month and only show your subscriptions (not really stuff that you buy from a running account). Bunq should do something similar: only show transactions that are near certain.

Daniela-Red-Swan

Hi guys! 👋🏼

Daniela here from the Data Science team! Thank you so much for your comments and your feedback! We’re glad to know you noticed the changes and you let us know what your thoughts are. That’s the best way to build our amazing app together! 💡

As announced 3 weeks ago, we decided to improve the balance prediction model for all of you, so I would like to give you a little bit more context of what was changed and how we improved it:

We shortened the number of days needed to make a prediction, which means you get accurate predictions with less data.
We included some additional predictors that allow us to better understand how your balance evolves through time.

As some of you experienced some inconveniences with this version in the past weeks, we decided to investigate further the cause of these problems and readjust the model by keeping the same improvements mentioned.

Today, we are happy to announce we have launched a new version, which will solve most of the problems you have encountered!. Of course, we’re always looking for ways to improve at bunq, which is why I’d be happy if you shared your feedback below.

NOTE: If you're seeing predictions in the past, or values that do not correspond to your actual transactions, please try re-installing the application, as it is caused by a caching issue on your phones.

Thanks for your understanding!

Have a great day! 🌈