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Phroogal Bridging the Financial Education Gap
How the credit union philosophy of people helping people is making Phroogal a reality.
Jason Vitug recently returned from a year-long backpacking trip around the world. While he was in the Bagan archaeological site in Myanmar an idea surfaced about how to help people live rich, frugally. Phroogal eventually morphed from an idea about frugal living to solving a big financial challenge – finding the right answers to money questions.
Vitug has worked in the financial services industry for the last 10 years. Although Vitug started his career in a bank he eventually landed his way into the credit union world. He worked his way from a teller to vice president of marketing at Tyco Credit Union based in Menlo Park, CA. Ever since then he’s been an advocate of financial education and all things credit union.
A credit union is a not-for-profit financial cooperative. Simple put members’ save money and other members borrow. “My experiences in credit unions have influenced a fundamental principle of Phroogal. Our value proposition is helping people share money knowledge through technology. It stems from that principle idea that people are willing to help people, “ stated Vitug.
Although, credit unions started as a savings and credit institution they have since evolved to be competitive alternatives to banks. There is a sense of frugality with credit unions and Phroogal was born from the word frugal. Phroogal will enable people to share their experiences supporting the idea of people helping people.
“There are so many resources that are available and many people do not know about them because there is so much information to sift through,” adds Jason. “Have you ever typed in a search for ‘how to improve a credit score’ and there are hundreds of millions of results. So what do you do?”
There are tremendous amounts of resources available to help people manage money, create a budget, obtain a loan or find educational opportunities. Phroogal is streamlining peoples’ access to money related information.
For instance, users might ask a question about creating a budget and users will get short answers or stories from the community. Phroogal will even connect users with resources and tools that fit a user’s specific needs. “You may know about credit unions but didn’t realize there was one around the corner. Or you might have heard of Mint.com but didn’t know about Learnvest? Phroogal will be the money portal in finding existing resources and discovering alternative answers to money questions,” claims Vitug.
Phroogal is a technology startup based in Mountain View, CA and schedule to launch beta test later this year primarily focused on credit union members.
For more information visit http://www.phroogal.com.