Shlomo Benartzi is a member of the Personal Capital advisory board. He has helped this leading fintech firm use mobile technology to boost financial wellness. One recent project led by Yaron Levi of USC and Benartzi showed that giving people access to just-in-time financial education could dramatically change their spending habits. They did this by studying a subset of users who had recently begun using the Personal Capital mobile app. While web users viewed their financial dashboard an average of 2.14 times per month, that number jumped top 12.47 times per month after installing the app. Furthermore, this additional feedback influenced people’s financial decisions, with the typical app user decreasing their monthly spending by 15.7 percent. Almost all of this decrease came in the form of discretionary spending, with app users spending much less on items such as dining out.

What makes this result so surprising is that studies have shown that traditional financial education is typically ineffective, often because people struggle to apply the lessons they learn in the classroom to real life months or years later. However, the just-in-time financial information provided by a good app can solve this timing issue, providing people with crucial information when they need it most.