How did you come to found Maslife?
My experiences in the business, entertainment and sporting world has shaped my transition to becoming an entrepreneur and founding Maslife in 2019.
I’ve always been fascinated by the power of technology and the far reaching benefits it can have on our lives and this stemmed from my teenage years being a programmer. When I was 11 years of age, I decided to pursue my other love – basketball! I was lucky to have played on a professional level and the game really taught me great values like teamwork, discipline, being results-orientated and always developing personally and collectively. After working several years in the investment industry as a trader, I increasingly started to feel burnt out and unhealthy so I began to overhaul my lifestyle – starting mindful meditation every morning. This gave me such clarity on what I wanted to do next and what made me truly happy, and so I circled back to my passion – technology and changing the world to create same positive habits as I have adopted.
After successfully launching several block-chain based businesses and realising the transformative impact meditation, healthy living and mindfulness had on my professional and personal life as well as my financial choices, I wanted to help others find sustainable ways to balance their wellbeing and finances, stay healthy and be happy while doing it all. The idea of Maslife was therefore born! By bridging technology with tools/support functions to create healthy mindsets and bank balances, Maslife provides an integrated offering that shifts negative habits and empowers people to feel calmer and in control, more confident and better equipped to deal with everyday life.
Can you tell us about Maslife?
Our finances can impact our mental and physical wellbeing and our mindset can also have a huge impact on how we manage our money. Maslife provides a clever, sharp and aesthetically on-point app that connects the two – it is the first AI fintech platform that offers a full-suite of financial and wellness tools to help customers manage their health and wealth. Instead of incentives for spending, Maslife offers financial & wellbeing goals, daily budgeting rewards and the tools to encourage healthier habits. Users can mood tag their spending, get instantly notified when they are over budget and get points and rewards for responsible spending, meditating, and exercising.
With a full suite of functions licensed by Mastercard, including a multi-currency account, local and international transfers and a zero-fee currency exchange, Maslife offers a highly secure, trusted, and personalised solutions to build financial freedom and embed a mindful mindset.
The past year has been difficult for many due to COVID, with people experiencing new types of isolation, anxiety and uncertainty of the future. It has caused everyone to pause and rethink. Although, it’s been a hugely challenging time to launch the business, we believe Maslife’s messages focusing of wellbeing and health will now be more important than ever.
How has the need for platforms like Maslife evolved during the pandemic?
There is a deep-seated link between our mental and physical wellbeing and our finances. A survey by the Money and Mental Health Policy Institute found striking evidence of this connection this year, when 93% of respondents reported their spending increases during times at which their mental health is suffering. Spending gives us a temporary dopamine hit, which is exactly why it can be so problematic for those with mental health problems, or anyone just feeling a little down. Emotional spending can easily spiral, with one purchase leading to another as we try to escape rising levels of guilt.
With the pandemic and subsequent lockdowns having a huge effect on everyone’s mental health, there is significant risk of an increase in dangerous spending behaviour. That’s why there has never been a greater need for platforms like Maslife. By integrating wellness into a banking platform, Maslife has a unique offering which supports users on a journey to achieving both their wellbeing and financial goals. This is incredibly pertinent to the issues broadly felt by the population in the present day, which have been exacerbated even more by the pandemic. At Maslife, we consider it our responsibility to provide customers with the best possible support, awareness and wellness solutions that can enable them to grow into the best version of themselves.
Today, we continue to adapt and innovate, listen to and talk to our customers, and understand how their needs and spending/saving behaviours are shifting, particularly in light of the global pandemic.
What can we hope to see from Maslife in the future?
The concept of Maslife is timeless and has global ambitions, in that its primary intension is to reinvent the human mindset towards self-development and reaching full potential. The impact of the pandemic, with all the social and economic restrictions it has brought has driven wellness and general health to the forefront of everyone’s minds. Maslife is in a unique position to provide much-needed support when it comes to health, wellness and finance, so we are anticipating a period of rapid growth. We recently raised £3million seed capital in funding and from this, are looking forward to bringing around 50 new staff members on board across our upcoming offices in Munich, Marbella and soon Monaco – giving us the capacity to operate across the whole of Europe.
It’s very early days for my business as we look to launch Maslife in Spring 2021. However, we have received very encouraging phenomenal interest from investors throughout the entire soft launch phase and feedback from our early customers and its fantastic to hear about the progress they’re making in achieving their financial and wellbeing goals with the help of Maslife.
