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AgeTech Collaborative™ startup participant myFloc is a FinTech company that empowers older adults to get support with their finances, on their own terms. A debit card-based solution, myFloc connects family, friends and caregivers on a common platform to reduce the stress of financial caregiving, and it protects against elder financial exploitation. 

Elizabeth Clubb, founder and CEO, spent time with us to tell us more about myFloc and its mission.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Please tell us about myFloc. 

We are a financial technology platform that is purpose-built for older adults and their caregivers. We aim to do three things: One is to empower older adults to get the care and support they need to age as they choose. We also work to connect caregivers and reduce the stress of financial caregiving. Third, we focus on preventing elder financial fraud and exploitation. 

We want to make the “invisible” visible; we look at it as we’re doing life together, and myFloc is how we can do money together without friction. 

What do you mean by making the “invisible” visible? 

Often, fraud and exploitation happen because nobody can see what's going on; it’s invisible. What we do is make the spending visible so that if something is going wrong, other people can see that and intervene if necessary. We look at myFloc as a digital and human solution: Digital solutions can’t solve everything; humans will always need to be involved. 

You mentioned that myFloc is purpose-built for older adults. How so? 

Our platform was built with “ageless design” in mind, so it’s very easy to use for everyone. We emphasize usability instead of bells and whistles; we want it to be simple to use for older adults, but we want it to be elegant and beautiful for younger people, too. We talk about it being intergenerational: We don’t want it to look like it’s built for someone who isn’t familiar with technology. 

You also mentioned “doing life together.” What do you mean by that? 

There are a lot of people who are involved in caregiving when older adults want to age on their own terms. There might be a spouse, children, friends, or neighbors; we call it a tapestry of care. That’s what we think of as doing life together.

But when there are a lot of people involved, the reality is that there has been no easy way to handle the money aspect together. There’s awkwardness with receipts and dealing with cash — we want to take all those awkward moments and friction out of doing life together when it comes to finances. 

Let's say someone wanted to sign up for myFloc to help with their aging mother’s finances. How does it work? 

MyFloc is a prepaid debit card-based solution. You would sign up with your mom, because the account is your mom’s — unless she wanted the account to be yours, in which case you yourself would sign up. 

It’s a new bank account, and one of the beautiful things about it is that your mom doesn’t need to reveal all her finances. Then she would add you, and you’d have all the same functionality over the account, although only she owns the money in the account. Then, there are a series of sub-accounts, who are people who also have debit cards attached to the account. That way, your mom’s friend who does her grocery shopping for her would have a card they could use. The money is your mom’s, and that person is spending your mom’s money, but you and your mom would be able to see all the spending on that card. 

What’s the backstory for myFloc? 

I started working in the aging space about 15 years ago, and really fell in love with the space. There’s so much need there, and so much opportunity to make things better. 

At that time, my father was living in his own home, very much aging on his own terms — then he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. He had a lot of people who helped him, but his solution for his daily expenses when he could no longer do them himself, like going to the grocery store, was to give those helpers his checkbook or credit card. That was a bad solution. He was living in fear of financial fraud, and he did become a victim of fraud, which is not an unusual thing. And many people don’t tell their families when they’ve been the victim of fraud, because there’s shame, or they’re afraid their families will take over management of their money. 

So we built myFloc as an empowerment tool for older adults to get the help that they want. But it's on their own terms, so that they don't have to give up their agency as older adults. 

What is a challenge you’ve faced that you didn't expect when building this company? 

Founding a startup is hard, but all the hard work is worth it. You have to really be in love with the problem, because the challenges always take longer to solve than you think they will. One of the challenges for myFloc is finding the right partners. That’s something we’re very dedicated to: We’re a financial platform, so we have to have the right financial partners and the right software development partners, for example. 

What’s on the horizon for myFloc? 

One of the things we’re excited about is partnering with other companies who are solving problems in the AgeTech space. We’re delighted with the Collaborative, and love what it is blossoming into. So we’re looking forward to working with other startups and other organizations in the AgeTech Collaborative™. 

You can learn more about myFloc at their website. 

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