Despite high rates of entrepreneurship and increasing middle-class buying power, the Latinx population continues to be ignored by many financial institutions. Finhabits, launched by former Wall Street investor Carlos Armando Garcia in 2017, has developed a series of bilingual, mobile-friendly lessons designed to teach Latinx people about topics such as retirement and credit, so they can better seek out financial tools that will grow their wealth. During the pandemic, a tutorial on how to build an emergency fund has been particularly popular. “Instead of saying to people, ‘You should have three to six months of your expenses [saved],’ we say, ‘You should start with $1,000, and build from there,'” says Garcia. “It’s much better to talk in dollar figures.” Paying attention to those types of details, with regard to both language and consumer behavior, has made Finhabits the leading money app for Latinx people, with 500,000 registered users.
See more honorees from the 2020 Innovation by Design Awards here.