Germany is about to roll out its biggest pension reform in 20 years: the Retirement Savings Account (Altersvorsorgedepot), launching January 2027. It could change how tens of millions of people build retirement wealth. But past reforms like Riester struggled because people did not understand them: providers kept 35-45% of contributions, over 5 million contracts were cancelled.
The core problem: when financial policy is shaped, the dominant voices in the room are banks, insurers, and their 1,700+ lobbyists. In most cases, our co-founder Sophie Thurner is the only person at those tables who combines financial education as a core mission with actual experience operating in the market. She is there to ensure that new rules, products, and reforms are designed to actually serve end users, not the financial industry.
We build DIN-certified education embedded directly into bank apps, combined with an automated cost transparency engine. And critically: Sophie sits inside the political system where these reforms are designed, from the BMF to the EU Commission to the bodies that set international financial regulation. We don't just educate consumers. We ensure that regulation itself is built to favor them.
Banks make more money when their customers understand less. This is not a knowledge gap. It is a structural conflict of interest.
The evidence is clear: financial institutions deliberately make fees hard to understand. Gabaix & Laibson (2006) proved that firms rationally hide costs because no company profits from making its prices comparable. Carlin (2009) showed that providers write disclosures to be unreadable on purpose and design fee structures to be incomparable. deHaan et al. (2021) confirmed that high-fee funds create the most complex disclosures. The less a customer understands, the more they pay.
And it works: Lusardi & Mitchell (2014) found that financially literate consumers pay lower fees and avoid costly products. Choi et al. (2010) showed that in experiments, the more people understood about fees, the less they paid. In other words: every euro a consumer saves through education is a euro the financial industry loses. That is why no bank will solve this problem on its own.
The industry also fights to keep it this way at the political level. The financial lobby spends 120M+ EUR/year in Brussels with 1,700+ lobbyists (Corporate Europe Observatory). In 2023, the EU Commission proposed banning kickbacks, the hidden commissions that banks and insurers earn for recommending expensive products to their customers. The financial lobby killed the ban (Follow the Money 2024).
Germany has already lived through the consequences. The Riester-Rente was a good idea: state-subsidized private pensions for everyone. It failed not because the product was wrong, but because people did not understand it. They could not compare offers, did not grasp the fee structures, and lost trust. Over 5 million of 20 million contracts were cancelled. Finanzwende found providers retained 35-45% of contributions and subsidies. The Altersvorsorgedepot could genuinely help millions of people build retirement wealth, but only if they understand how to use it. Without education, the same confusion and mistrust will repeat. The danger is real: Riester 2.0.
The system has two layers: an education platform already in production, and a cost transparency engine we need to build.
EDUCATION PLATFORM (live): A white-label learning experience that lives inside the bank's own app or website. Users never leave their bank. No separate download, no extra login. The content is structured as 13 levels with 40+ DIN-certified micro-learning modules (1-3 minutes each), built around a 10-day challenge format with daily tasks. Gamification (streaks, points, badges) and automated email flows keep users coming back. Every level ends with a concrete action: opening an account, starting a savings plan, increasing a contribution. Banks integrate this in three ways: via a simple link, embedded into their app, or through enterprise-grade secure infrastructure. Multiple bank partners already use this system in production. No personal data is stored. Hosted in Germany, DSGVO compliant.
For the Altersvorsorgedepot, we build a complete new learning experience dedicated to retirement savings: how fees compound over decades, how to compare AV-Depot products, what state subsidies are available, and what to watch out for when choosing a provider. This is not a few added modules. It is a full standalone journey designed specifically for the moment Germany asks its citizens to make one of the most important financial decisions of their lives.
COST TRANSPARENCY ENGINE (to be built): This is the new technical core. Today, every AV-Depot product comes with a legally required information sheet. These sheets are dense, written in financial jargon, and nearly impossible to compare. Our engine reads these documents automatically, extracts the actual fee structures, and calculates what each product truly costs in euros over 10, 20, and 40 years. This comparison is built directly into the education journey. When a citizen is about to choose a product, they see what that choice will cost them in real money, not in percentages buried in fine print.
The method: learn first, then see the numbers, then decide.
The disruptive element is not better content. It is changing who has a voice when financial policy is made.
Today, financial regulation is shaped almost exclusively by the industry it regulates. The financial lobby employs 1,700+ lobbyists in Brussels and spends 120M+ EUR/year (Corporate Europe Observatory). Consumer perspectives are structurally absent. The result: policies that serve providers, not citizens. The Riester-Rente. The killed EU inducement ban. Cost caps that get lobbied upward.
No single intervention changes this. Education alone fails without distribution. Advocacy alone fails without data. Technology alone fails without political credibility.
We are the only organization that operates inside all of these systems simultaneously:
1) INSIDE THE POLITICAL SYSTEM: Co-founder Sophie Thurner is not an outside advocate. She is a former FCA and SEC regulator who co-authored policy papers for the FSB and IOSCO that shaped global financial regulation. She is an invited expert at the BMF, a member of the FDP's Grundsatzprogramm expert panel, co-author of the 2025 pension reform position paper, and will speak at the EU Commission's Brussels Economics Forum in May 2026. She sits at the tables where the Altersvorsorgedepot rules are written, as a participant, not a petitioner. Without her, there is no consumer voice in these processes. She is the reason new regulations and policy frameworks account for the end user, not just the industry.
2) INSIDE THE BANKING SYSTEM: We embed our education directly into bank apps via white-label. We reach citizens at the moment they make their pension product decision, not weeks before or after.
3) STRUCTURALLY ALIGNED: Our revenue comes from licensing education, not selling products. Every other player has a conflict of interest.
4) CERTIFIED: Only DIN-certified digital financial education provider in Germany (DEFINO).
WHAT EXISTS TODAY:
Technology: Production-ready white-label web app with 13 levels, 40+ modules, gamification (streaks, points, badges), interactive quizzes, and CRM email automation. Hosted on AWS Frankfurt, DSGVO compliant. Three integration tiers from standalone to enterprise, compatible with bank-grade security environments.
Content: 40+ DIN-certified learning modules (DEFINO certified, only digital financial education provider in Germany with this certification). WpHG and MiFID-II compliant. Created by experts with FCA and SEC background.
Distribution: Active partnerships with a top-5 German universal bank, one of Germany's largest cooperative banks, a robo-advisory arm of a major savings bank group, and a leading European ETF provider. Currently in negotiations or active discussions with 20+ additional financial institutions, including multiple Sparkassen, Volksbanken, direct banks, and major universal banks. Through our existing and pipeline partners, we have access to a combined customer base of over 30 million German retail banking customers.
Track record: B2C app since 2021. 4.8/5 App Store rating (~1,000 reviews). Apple App of the Day. Focus Money Award (best finance app DACH). WIRED Hottest Startups Europe.
Policy access: Sophie Thurner invited panelist at Brussels Economics Forum 2026 (DG FISMA), co-authored FSB/IOSCO policy papers, regular BMF expert, FDP Grundsatzprogramm panel member, HoFT Berlin board member, co-authored 2025 pension reform position paper.
WHAT NEEDS TO BE BUILT:
1) Altersvorsorgedepot-specific education modules (pension product comparison, fee mechanics, state subsidy optimization)
2) Cost transparency engine: automated analysis and comparison of AV-Depot product costs
3) Integration of transparency data into the education journey at the decision point
4) Measurement framework linking education completion to product choice quality
Yes. Multiple proof points exist:
TECHNOLOGY PROOF: Our white-label education platform is live and in production with multiple bank partners. A top-5 German universal bank, one of Germany's largest cooperative banks, a robo-advisory arm of a major savings bank group, and a leading European ETF provider have integrated or are integrating our embedded learning experience. The technology works at bank-grade security standards (AWS Frankfurt, TLS 1.2+, mTLS-compatible, DSGVO compliant).
CONTENT PROOF: We are the only digital financial education provider in Germany with DEFINO (DIN) certification. Our content has passed regulatory review for WpHG and MiFID-II compliance. This certification process validates both accuracy and pedagogical quality.
CONSUMER PROOF: Our B2C app (running since 2021) has a 4.8/5 App Store rating from approximately 1,000 organic reviews. Apple selected us as App of the Day (editorial award). Focus Money awarded us best finance app in DACH. WIRED named us among the Hottest Startups in Europe.
ENGAGEMENT PROOF: Our micro-learning format (1-3 minute modules) with gamification achieves completion rates and engagement metrics that demonstrate users actually learn, not just browse. The 10-day challenge format with daily tasks drives sustained engagement.
POLICY PROOF: Sophie Thurner's invitation to the Brussels Economics Forum 2026 by DG FISMA, her position on the HoFT board, and repeated BMF invitations prove that policymakers recognize beatvest as a credible voice in financial education policy.
What remains to be proven: the Altersvorsorgedepot-specific modules and the cost transparency engine. These are extensions of proven capabilities, not unvalidated concepts.
Total project budget: EUR 400,000 over 6 months (mid-2026 to beginning of 2027, aligned with AV-Depot launch).
MILESTONE 1 - FOUNDATION & CONTENT (Months 1-2, EUR 120,000)
WP1: Full Altersvorsorgedepot learning experience designed, written, and expert-reviewed. Cost transparency engine architecture defined, data sources mapped. First pilot bank partner confirmed. DEFINO certification initiated.
MILESTONE 2 - ENGINE & INTEGRATION (Months 3-4, EUR 160,000)
WP2: Cost transparency engine MVP processing AV-Depot products. DEFINO certification obtained. Transparency data integrated into education journey. First bank partner integration live with beta users. Includes engine development (EUR 90K) and platform integration (EUR 70K).
MILESTONE 3 - LAUNCH & IMPACT (Months 5-6, EUR 120,000)
WP3: Full product launch with first bank partner, timed to AV-Depot market launch (Jan 2027). Second partner integration started. First impact data collected (user comprehension, product choice patterns). Policy recommendations prepared for BMF based on initial user data.
beatvest has raised EUR 2,921,000 across five convertible loan agreement (CLA) rounds between 2021 and 2025. Investors include APX (Axel Springer/Porsche), Main Incubator (Commerzbank's innovation unit), sino Beteiligungen, and a network of strategic angels from banking and tech. This capital funded everything that exists today: the B2C app, the white-label platform, bank partnerships, DIN certification, and the team. The core B2B product is built and generating revenue.
Private capital will not fund this project. Not because it lacks potential, but because venture capital funds companies that work with existing market structures, not against them.
The financial industry is built on a deeply engrained system: complexity generates revenue, opacity protects margins, and the less consumers understand, the more providers earn. Every incentive in the market reinforces this. VCs understand that. When they invest in fintech, they fund companies that fit into this system: better trading apps, faster payment rails, more efficient ways to distribute financial products. They ask: how do we extract maximum value from the existing structure? That is a rational investment thesis.
What we do is the opposite. We make fees transparent. We educate consumers to choose cheaper products. We sit inside government processes to ensure regulation protects citizens, not providers. No venture investor will fund a company whose success means an entire industry earns less. The returns are societal, not financial: billions in saved retirement wealth across millions of citizens, but no outsized exit for a fund.
This is exactly the kind of project SPRIND exists for: breakthrough innovations that serve the public good but that the market will never fund on its own, because they challenge the structures the market depends on.
Success during implementation means measurable progress across three dimensions: reach, comprehension, and institutional adoption.
REACH (during): Number of bank partners integrating the system (target: 2 by launch). Number of citizens completing AV-Depot education modules (target: 50,000+ in first 6 months post-launch). Number of AV-Depot products in the transparency engine database.
COMPREHENSION (during): Pre/post quiz scores measuring understanding of fee mechanics, product comparison, and subsidy optimization. We already run quizzes in our existing modules. Applying the same methodology to AV-Depot content gives us a direct measure of whether citizens actually understand what they are choosing.
COST IMPACT (during): Measurable difference in average product costs chosen by educated vs. non-educated users. If a citizen who completed our journey selects a product with 0.3% lower fees on average, that is EUR 22,500 in additional retirement savings over 40 years per person (at 200 EUR/month, 6% return).
ADOPTION RISK: Banks may resist integrating truly transparent cost comparison tools because transparency could steer customers toward lower-margin products. Mitigation: We already have bank partnerships and position education as a compliance and customer retention tool, not a threat. Banks that offer transparency will attract cost-conscious customers from competitors. Early adopters gain a trust advantage.
REGULATORY TIMING: The Altersvorsorgedepot launches January 2027. If product specifications or fee structures change during the legislative process, our content and transparency engine need to adapt. Mitigation: Our content pipeline already includes regulatory update cycles (we update for WpHG and MiFID-II changes). DEFINO certification includes review processes. Sophie's direct access to BMF and legislative process gives us early visibility on changes.
INDUSTRY PUSHBACK: The financial lobby may resist standardized cost transparency as it undermines their ability to differentiate through complexity. We saw this with the EU inducement ban. Mitigation: We are building a tool for consumers, not a regulatory mandate. Adoption is voluntary through bank partnerships. Political support is strong (100K petition, BMF engagement, cross-party pension reform consensus).
SCALE: Reaching millions of Germans requires significant bank adoption. Mitigation: We don't need to partner with every bank. The top 10 banks cover the majority of retail customers. We already work with several. Each successful integration proves the model for the next.
DATA QUALITY: The transparency engine depends on access to standardized product information. If AV-Depot product disclosures are inconsistent, automated comparison becomes harder. Mitigation: BIB/KID formats are regulated. We build parsing for standardized formats first.
The problem has never been solved because every existing approach addresses only one piece while leaving the system intact.
MEDIA EDUCATION (Finanztip, Finanzfluss): Reaches millions, but only those who actively search. The most vulnerable (low literacy, low income, women with 12-point gap) never find it. Finanztip earns via affiliate links, creating subtle incentive tension. Content is generic, disconnected from the decision moment.
BANK DISCLOSURES (BIBs/KIDs): Legally mandated but academically proven to be deliberately complex. Carlin (2009) showed providers use "narrative complexity" (unreadable writing) and "structural complexity" (incomparable structures) as rent-extraction tools. deHaan et al. (2021) confirmed high-fee funds create unnecessarily complex disclosures. The bank's "transparency" is designed to obscure.
GOVERNMENT INITIATIVES: The BMF/BMBF launched a National Financial Education Initiative in 2023. It raises awareness but changes nothing at the point of decision. No technology, no bank integration, no feedback loop. Awareness without action.
CONSUMER ADVOCACY (Verbraucherzentrale, Finanzwende): Essential political work. Finanztip's petition gathered 100K signatures in 3 days. But they operate outside the distribution chain. They can pressure politicians but cannot intervene when a consumer is choosing a product inside their bank app.
COMPARISON SITES (Check24, Verivox): Commission-based. Christoffersen & Musto (2002) showed fund pricing exploits unsophisticated demand. Comparison sites are part of the same incentive structure, steering toward products that pay highest commissions.
None of these operates where education, distribution, incentive alignment, and policy access intersect.
FINANZTIP: Germany's largest non-profit consumer finance platform. Strong reach (millions of readers), strong advocacy (100K-signature petition on AV-Depot costs). Does not offer embedded B2B education technology. Revenue through affiliate links creates incentive tension. No bank integration, no DIN certification.
FINANZFLUSS: Popular YouTube-based financial education. Excellent reach among young, digitally native audience. No B2B distribution, no regulatory engagement, no embedded technology. Content-only model.
FINANCE WATCH (EU): Brussels-based NGO created as counterweight to financial lobby. Produces policy papers and advocacy. No consumer-facing technology, no education platform, no data from actual consumer behavior.
VERBRAUCHERZENTRALE: Government-funded consumer protection. Trusted brand, individual advice services. Not scalable as technology, not embedded in bank distribution, no real-time data collection.
GELD VERSTEHEN (Deutsche Bundesbank): Financial education program of the Bundesbank. High credibility. No technology platform, no bank integration, no point-of-decision delivery.
COMPARISON SITES (Check24, Verivox): Product comparison with commission-based revenue models. Incentivized to recommend products that pay highest commissions, not lowest-cost products. Not education, but product placement.
beatvest is the only player combining: DIN-certified content + embedded bank distribution + structural incentive alignment + direct regulatory access at EU and national level. No competitor operates across all four dimensions.
The direct beneficiaries are every German citizen eligible for the Retirement Savings Account (Altersvorsorgedepot). Tens of millions of people who will make pension product choices starting January 2027.
The stakes are enormous at the individual level: 75,000 EUR difference in retirement savings between a 0.5% and 1.5% fee product over 40 years (200 EUR/month, 6% return). Multiply that across millions of citizens and the collective cost of confusion runs into the billions.
Those hit hardest without this project: women (60% vs. 48% financial literacy in Germany, GFLEC 2017), low-income households (significantly lower literacy scores, OECD 2024), and young adults making their first pension decision with no frame of reference. These are exactly the groups that media-based education never reaches because they do not seek it out. Our embedded approach meets them where they already are: inside their bank app, at the moment of decision.
Our paying customers are banks distributing AV-Depot products. They license our education and transparency tools embedded into their apps. For banks, the value is compliance support, reduced mis-selling risk, and customer retention through trust. We already have this model working with multiple bank partners including a top-5 universal bank and one of Germany's largest cooperative banks.
Regulators (BMF, BaFin) benefit from fewer mis-selling complaints, better-informed citizens, and structured data on consumer comprehension that currently does not exist. Sophie's presence inside these institutions means the data feedback loop is not theoretical. It is already connected to the people who write the rules.
The social impact compounds: every citizen who chooses a lower-fee product keeps more of their own money. Every data point from their education journey gives regulators evidence to write better policy. Better policy protects the next generation. This is not a one-time intervention. It is infrastructure.
Financial education is recognized government infrastructure, as fundamental to pension reform as the tax code itself. No policy launches without it. No product reaches citizens without transparent cost comparison first.
The structural shift: consumer behavior data from millions of education interactions gives regulators an evidence base independent of industry lobbyists. For the first time, the people writing the rules know what citizens actually understand. Policy is shaped by evidence, not by the 1,700 lobbyists who currently dominate the conversation.
Fee obfuscation becomes economically unviable. Providers compete on value, not opacity. The market shifts from rent extraction to genuine service. Women, low-income households, and young adults are no longer disproportionately harmed by complexity they were never taught to navigate.
Other countries adopt the model. Germany becomes the proof that pension reform works when citizens are equipped to use it.
Two co-founders, supported by development and content teams.
SOPHIE THURNER (Co-CEO): Former FCA/SEC regulator. Sits inside the political system as an invited expert: BMF, EU Commission Brussels Economics Forum 2026, FDP Grundsatzprogramm panel, HoFT Berlin board, co-author of FSB/IOSCO policy papers and the 2025 pension reform position paper. She is the only voice in these regulatory processes who stands for deeply embedded financial education while also operating in the market alongside the investment platforms and insurers lobbying on this regime. Without her, new rules serve the industry, not citizens.
JULIA KRUSLIN (Co-CEO): Product, technology, business development. Built beatvest from concept to production. Manages bank partnerships and technical integrations. Drives B2B sales and growth.
WHERE WE NEED CAPACITY: Access to policymakers and banks to amplify distribution. We run founder-led sales, which gives us credibility and deep relationships but limits how many conversations we can run in parallel. We do not yet have the resources to employ a dedicated sales team. SPRIND's network and institutional backing would accelerate the number of bank partnerships and policy integrations we can pursue simultaneously.
1) GOVERNMENT INTEGRATION: We already work with the BMF, BMBF, and EU Commission. SPRIND's proximity to the BMFTR and federal policy apparatus can help make financial education a formal component of the Altersvorsorgedepot rollout, not just a voluntary add-on. The goal is institutional anchoring: education embedded into policy, not offered alongside it.
2) INSTITUTIONAL CREDIBILITY: SPRIND backing transforms bank conversations. When we approach Sparkassen, Volksbanken, and large institutions, a government-backed initiative moves faster than a startup pitch. This accelerates the distribution that makes the social impact possible.
3) EXPERTISE: Access to SPRIND's network for data engineering, AI/ML, and impact measurement strengthens the cost transparency engine, the technical core of the project.