Frequently asked questions.

No — joining a Kintro pot has zero impact on your credit score. Kintro is built on a Zero-Association Model, meaning no financial link is ever created between group members' credit files.

This is one of the most important differences between Kintro and a traditional joint bank account. When you open a joint account at a high-street bank, your credit files become permanently linked — if another member has poor credit history, it can affect your ability to get a mortgage or loan.

Kintro uses a tiered KYC (Know Your Customer) approach in line with UK Anti-Money Laundering regulations:

Tier 1 — Basic check (pots under £1,000): Name, date of birth, and address verification. This is a soft check and does not affect your credit score.

Tier 2 — Enhanced check (higher value pots): A photo ID and liveness check is required. Again, this is an identity check only — not a credit check — and has no impact on your credit file.

Because there is no financial association between members, another member's debt situation cannot affect you in any way. This is by design.

If a member misses a contribution, the pot simply reflects this in the progress tracker. The Nudge Engine sends automated reminders, and the Organiser is alerted after 5 days. At no point does any member's financial difficulty create any obligation or liability for anyone else in the group.

Kintro uses multiple overlapping layers of security:

Multi-Sig: No single person can move the group's funds. A configurable threshold of approvals (e.g. 2 of 3, or 4 of 6) is required before any withdrawal executes.

Biometric SCA: Every withdrawal approval requires the member to authenticate via Face ID or fingerprint on their own device. Passcodes are not accepted for payment actions.

Encryption: All data is encrypted using AES-256 at rest and TLS 1.3 in transit. Transaction signing uses HMAC (Hash-based Message Authentication Code) to prevent tampering.

Safeguarding: Funds are held in a ring-fenced safeguarding account at a regulated UK banking partner — entirely separate from Kintro's own operational funds.

Multi-Sig (multi-signature) is a security model where multiple independent approvals are required to authorise a transaction — similar to requiring two keys to open a safety deposit box.

In a traditional group arrangement, one person typically holds all the money (e.g. the WhatsApp group treasurer). If they disappear, are hacked, or simply make a bad decision, the entire pot is at risk. Kintro eliminates this single point of failure entirely.

All personal data (PII) is stored exclusively on UK-based servers in compliance with UK GDPR. Kintro is registered with the ICO (Information Commissioner's Office) for data protection.

Every action taken on a pot — who viewed it, who approved a payment, who sent a nudge — is recorded in an immutable, timestamped audit log retained for 6 years. These logs are available to regulators and, on request, to members of the relevant pot.

Yes. Kintro generates monthly Pot Statements in PDF format showing the opening balance, each member's individual contributions, any interest earned, and the closing balance.

Growth and Pro plan members can export full audit logs and HMRC-ready tax exports. These are particularly useful for formal savings groups like Chamas, investment clubs, and workplace groups that need to report to members or accountants.

Your money is always safe because it is never held by Kintro directly. All group pot funds are held in safeguarding accounts at a regulated UK e-money institution, completely ring-fenced from Kintro's own finances.

In the unlikely event that Kintro ceased to operate, the safeguarding regulations require the banking partner to return all funds directly to the rightful members. Kintro's operational finances and your pot funds are legally and structurally separate.

Open Banking is a UK-regulated framework that allows FCA-authorised apps to initiate payments and access account data securely — with the full consent of the account holder. Kintro uses it in two ways:

PISP (Payment Initiation): When you contribute to a pot, Kintro uses Open Banking to initiate a payment directly from your bank account. You authorise this with your banking app's biometrics — you never share your banking credentials with Kintro.

AISP (Account Information): Used to verify your identity and bank account details for payouts, so withdrawals land in the right place without manual sort code entry.

Kintro supports approximately 99% of UK bank accounts via our Open Banking provider, including all major high-street banks (Barclays, HSBC, NatWest, Lloyds, Santander) and digital banks (Monzo, Starling, Revolut, Chase).

Because Kintro is bank-agnostic, every member of a group can pay in from their own bank — there is no requirement for the group to share the same bank or even the same type of account.

Yes — this is one of Kintro's core features. Variable Recurring Payments (VRP) allow you to authorise the app to automatically pull your monthly contribution from your bank account on a set date, with no manual action required each month.

This is the "set and forget" feature. Unlike a standard standing order, VRP is smarter — it can handle variable amounts and gives you a clear notification before each payment so you're never caught off guard.

Once you approve a payment in your bank app, the pot balance updates to Pending Settlement immediately. The full confirmation (Completed status) appears once the funds have physically landed in the safeguarding account — typically within a few seconds to a few hours via Faster Payments.

The group receives a real-time notification as soon as a contribution is confirmed: "Sarah has contributed £200. The pot is now 80% full."

The Kintro Free plan is genuinely free — there is no monthly subscription. The only cost is a 1% fee on each withdrawal, which is only charged when you take money out of the pot.

For casual groups (hen dos, birthday collections, small friend groups), the Free plan covers everything you need. For larger or more serious groups, the Growth (£4.99/mo) and Pro (£14.99/mo) plans remove the withdrawal fee entirely and unlock advanced features.

The 1% fee is charged only at the point of withdrawal — not on contributions. So if your group saves £500 and withdraws the full amount, the fee is £5.

For comparison, if a Growth group is saving £500/month, upgrading to the £4.99/month plan saves them £0.01 per cycle — roughly break-even. But for a group saving £1,000+/month, the Growth plan saves significantly. The upgrade prompt appears automatically when it makes financial sense for your group.

The subscription is billed to the Organiser's account, but many groups choose to split the cost informally. For a 10-member group on the Growth plan, that works out to just 50p per person per month.

For Pro groups, the Organiser can deduct the subscription cost directly from the pot before distributing funds — making it a transparent, shared group expense.

As Kintro scales, funds held across all pots generate interest through the safeguarding bank. Kintro's model passes the majority of this back to group pots — for example, passing 3.5% back while retaining a 0.5% spread.

The exact interest rates passed on will be clearly displayed in the app and will vary with prevailing UK base rates. Full transparency on interest earned is shown in every monthly Pot Statement.

Kintro operates in partnership with FCA-regulated e-money institutions for all payment and safeguarding functions. This means every payment processed through Kintro is executed under FCA-supervised infrastructure.

Kintro itself is registered with the ICO for data protection and operates under the FCA's Consumer Duty framework, which requires firms to deliver demonstrably good outcomes for retail customers — including clear, fair communication about fees, risks, and fund locations.

Kintro uses a safeguarding model rather than FSCS deposit protection. As an e-money product, funds are held in ring-fenced safeguarding accounts, legally separated from Kintro's operational funds.

While this is different from FSCS protection (which covers up to £85,000 per person at a bank), safeguarding ensures that in the event of Kintro's insolvency, group pot funds are held separately and returned to members — they cannot be used to pay Kintro's creditors.

The FCA Consumer Duty (fully in effect from 2024, with ongoing outcome monitoring from 2026) requires financial firms to prove they deliver good outcomes for customers. For Kintro users this means:

Clear fees: All costs are shown upfront — no hidden charges. Plain English: No confusing jargon. Easy exit: You can close a pot and withdraw your share at any time with no penalty. Accessible support: Help is always available via the in-app chat.

Kintro applies a risk-proportionate KYC/AML framework aligned with UK regulations:

Under £1,000: Basic identity check (name, date of birth, address). Over £1,000: Enhanced due diligence including photo ID and a liveness check to confirm you are a real person.

Transaction monitoring runs continuously in the background. Unusual patterns — such as large rapid inflows followed by immediate withdrawal — are flagged for review. All of this happens transparently and without inconveniencing the vast majority of legitimate users.

No. Contributions to a group pot are made from post-tax income — money you have already paid income tax on. HMRC does not tax the act of pooling money with others.

You are only potentially liable for tax on interest earned while the money sits in the account — not on the contributions themselves, and not on the withdrawal of your own money.

HMRC's default position is to split interest equally between all members. So if your pot earns £600 in interest and there are 3 members, HMRC treats each person as having earned £200 in interest.

This is then measured against each member's individual Personal Savings Allowance (PSA). For most people in casual saving groups, the interest earned per person will be well within their allowance — meaning no tax is owed.

The PSA is the amount of interest you can earn each year without paying any tax on it. Your allowance depends on your income tax band:

If your share of the pot's interest exceeds your PSA, you will pay tax on the excess at your usual income tax rate (20%, 40%, or 45%).

For employees: HMRC typically handles this automatically by adjusting your tax code — you usually don't need to do anything.

For self-employed / sole traders: You must declare the interest income on your Self Assessment tax return. Kintro's HMRC-ready PDF exports (available on Growth and Pro plans) make this straightforward.

No — a Group ISA does not exist under UK law. An ISA (Individual Savings Account) must be held by a single named individual. You cannot open a Joint ISA or a Group ISA.

If tax on savings interest is a significant concern for your group (e.g. a large Chama saving substantial sums), the most practical approach is for each member to maintain funds in their individual ISA and transfer into the group pot only when the group is ready to spend or invest together.