Joan Medland, Co-Founder, Shoal

Today we're meeting Joan Medland, the Co-founder of Shoal, a sustainable savings app – launching with a leading interest rate and FSCS protection, as well as the ability to support green and social projects globally.

Over to you Joan:

Who are you and what's your background?

I'm originally from Canada, and moved to London in 2010. My background is magic circle law, 'big 4' consulting and financial services.

Looking back, graduating around the time of the 2008 financial crisis was a really formative experience – it led to me having a strong interest in improving corporate decision making. I later completed my MSc dissertation on how to run businesses, with more regard to society and planet.

What is your job title and what are your general responsibilities?

I'm Co-founder of Shoal. As every founder will know, the role is quite fluid and has evolved over the past three years in line with business requirements.

I've tended to focus on commercial aspects – whether that's building and adjusting our business model in partnership with the CFO, or leading our work around strategic partnerships – as well as fundraising and go-to-market strategy.

My passion is sustainable finance, so I also lead on our product roadmap. The vision for Shoal is to become a marketplace where we can all use our money more sustainably, and so I'm constantly assessing trends in sustainable products – across both finance and consumer goods – and researching the respective commercials around them.

Can you give us an overview of your business?

Shoal is a sustainable savings app. We offer 3, 6, and 12 months fixed term savings products.

When you save through Shoal, you not only earn a competitive rate of return and benefit from FSCS protection – your money is also used to help support green and social projects around the world.

Many people don't realise how powerful their money is as a tool to influence positive outcomes – especially when we join together with others.

It's a common misconception that your money is just sat in your account, or locked up in a vault. But it's actually out there, doing things. Your bank uses it to provide loans to businesses and projects.

And wouldn't it be great if you had a say over what your bank supports with your money?

We know that more and more of us are increasingly concerned about climate change – but when it comes to sustainability we often think about things like recycling or our food first. These things are great, but our finances are so much more powerful: research from Make My Money Matter shows that switching your pension to a green option is 21 times more powerful at cutting your carbon emissions than giving up flying, going veggie and switching your energy provider - COMBINED. And those things are really difficult to do, but switching your pension (or your savings provider) is super easy. You can do it in a matter of minutes.

It's a personal mission of mine to get this message out there. Once informed – most people think it's a no-brainer. In fact, over three quarters of UK savers say they want their savings to have a positive impact on the planet, and 52% would switch providers if it meant they could see how their money is invested.

Over time, we aim to create a marketplace for sustainable finance – to make it easier for you to save, spend and invest more sustainably. We'll do the homework for you, and bring the best, financially competitive products together in one place from a range of partners.

Our mission is to break down barriers to empower people to achieve their financial goals in a way that promotes environmental and social responsibility.

Tell us how you are funded?

Shoal was incubated by SC Ventures by Standard Chartered. SCV hosts "Intraprenuer Challenges" across its footprint, and my co-founders Tom Mason, Amit Puri and I were fortunate enough to win the challenge in Europe and Americas, which also provided some initial funding.

I spent the next year or so working side of desk – evenings and weekends – to build Shoal's business model. Luckily, this was during lockdown so there wasn't much distraction! When things returned to normal late 2020, we regrouped and took the idea to the Ventures Brains Trust, obtaining our first significant round of funding, which we then used to build our tech and our team.

What's the origin story? Why did you start the company? To solve what problems?

The idea for Shoal was born from an experience I had when starting a new role at Standard Chartered. At this point, I had already started to apply a sustainability lens to my purchasing decisions – whether this was buying ethical coffee or looking at eco hotel options for holidays. I was lucky enough to have received a pay rise, and was looking for a financial product that made a good return but also did some good. When I tried to apply the same sustainability lens to my finances as I already had to my purchasing decisions, I found it extremely difficult.

I first started looking through my high street banking app – but had no luck. What I found most striking about this experience is that, despite having access to a lot of my data, there was nothing there that indicated my bank knew anything about me. I was just a series of numbers and balances. Much of the success attributed to neobanks (which incumbents have tried to replicate) stems from strategies that support "lifestyle banking" – helping customers to achieve goals, or make aspects of their life (like travel) easier. In my opinion, the next frontier in lifestyle banking is around values – supporting customers to reach their sustainable living goals simultaneously with their financial goals. This will become increasingly important as we progress through generational wealth transfer.

After failing to find the right financial product with my high street bank, I took my research to the web – at which point I just gave up. Claims were misleading or lacked transparency, financial performance was either uncompetitive or difficult to benchmark, or I wasn't able to access the product without being high net worth.

I just thought: this has to be easier, and there must be more people out there like me.

Who are your target customers? What's your revenue model?

As our product is financially competitive, our target customer isn't just those who prioritise sustainability. In fact, we aim to convert consumers who may even be a little sceptical about green finance – by showing them that making their money work better doesn't mean being agnostic about helping the planet. In short: we welcome everyone and hope they'll come along with us on our journey.

The Shoal app is free to use for customers, and we earn intermediary fees from our partners while helping them build out their distribution.

If you had a magic wand, what one thing would you change in the banking and/or FinTech sector?

There is a real opportunity in sustainable finance which, for political reasons or macro-economic reasons, is somewhat overlooked at the moment.

To date, sustainability startups have tended to focus on measurement and risk, which has provided the foundational building blocks needed, but the real opportunity now is in mobilising capital through innovative financial solutions and partnerships - towards solutions that will help meet society's needs in a zero carbon and climate-resilient future.

There is so much innovation, job creation and prosperity to be had in this space – it's really exciting!

What is your message for the larger players in the Financial Services marketplace?

There needs to be a paradigm shift for financial services to remain competitive. Fintech leaders – Klarna, Revolut, etc. – are eating the big banks' lunch, which risks customer disintermediation. A few learnings from the fintech world could help the heritage players to increase competitiveness and drive innovation:

• A mindset shift towards "founder mode", as Paul Graham puts it in his recently viral blog. It's about moving away from manager mode, where you "you hire good people and get out of their way", to rolling up your sleeves and getting involved, which really resonates with my experience.
• Early in our journey, when we were hiring experts across IT, marketing, finance etc. – manager mode just didn't work and led to a number of issues. Individuals didn't understand the direction and teams weren't aligned. This made us slow. I found that I needed to understand the detail about their respective fields to ensure alignment with the vision, bring people together, challenge assumptions and effectively remove blockers.
• Founder mode is backed by the data – Pitchbook's analysis demonstrated a 22% increase in valuation between funding rounds for founder-CEOs versus 4.7% for non-founder CEOs.
• Ideas (and influence) should be democratised: Anyone can come forward with a good idea – you don't need to be in a specific function or a member of the leadership team. Apple is a great case study, adopting "skip level" meetings – i.e. meetings outside just your direct reports – and retreats with the company's 100 "most important people" (who were not necessarily the 100 most senior people).
• While good ideas can come from anywhere, in order to drive adoption, your people will need to have the ability to form partnerships, influence others, and learn new skills quickly. Adopting these attributes as valued behaviours at an organisational level can radically transform how you serve customers while empowering your staff.

Where do you get your Financial Services/FinTech industry news from?

I read newsletters like Sifted. I'm also part of a community of Fintech founders – we share learnings daily with each other via Whatsapp. I also like to read The Economist, Financial Times, Carbon Brief, Environmental Finance and Bloomberg.

Can you list 3 people you rate from the FinTech and/or Financial Services sector that we should be following on LinkedIn, and why?

Can I give you 4?

• I really respect and admire the work of Dr Rhian-Mari Thomas OBE and the Green Finance Institute. She's an ex-banker turned CEO, who's focused on bridging the gap between finance and sustainability, while the GFI is leading on important work in this space.
• I also really enjoy the thought leadership of Leda Glyptis PhD and Theodora Lau.
• And the work that Greg Jackson is doing with Octopus Energy and Kraken.

What FinTech services (and/or apps) do you personally use?

I just tried out Local Community Bonds by Abundance Capital. I lent my money to Westminster Council, who will use it to make council-owned buildings more energy efficient. I'll earn 4.2% AER for 5 years – with rates expected to go down in 2025, this is not only a good financial deal but will also make a real impact against energy efficiency targets locally.

I'd also recommend PensionBee UK – their app makes tracking down your old pension really easy. They do the hard work for you and once set up – you can select from a number of options for your pension, including a green option.

Finally, while I haven't signed up yet, I think it's impressive what Female Invest have been able to achieve and I'll be watching and cheering on their growth.

What's the best new FinTech product or service you've seen recently?

I think the partnership between Zopa Bank and Octopus Energy to provide Octopus customers with Buy-Now-Pay-Later solutions for solar panels and electric vehicles is great. There are lots of government grants available to encourage the purchase of these products, but this still requires customers to front the cash, which means they become socially exclusive and inaccessible. Buy-Now-Pay-Later, done ethically, is a brilliant move to scale these products and help to address the issue of energy inefficient homes in the UK.

Finally, let's talk predictions. What trends do you think are going to define the next few years in the FinTech sector?

I think ESG will have a resurgence. It continues to be a pressing issue for many consumers and with policies like the EU Green Deal, and Inflation Reduction Act in the US demonstrating economic value and growth with green policies, I expect that the UK government will follow suit and put major investment into green and sustainable projects, at the same time as creating jobs in future-proof industries.

The flow of private capital is an important part of achieving government plans. Companies like Shoal that present an opportunity to direct private funding have an enormous opportunity in front of them.

Thank you so much for taking the time to participate Joan!

You can connect with Joan Medland on LinkedIn and find out more about Shoal at http://www.joinshoal.co.uk.