Business guidance inside your app.

Narrative Coach sits inside your bank or digital finance platform. It brings together connected financial data and the owner’s plans to help them understand the business, work through decisions and explore relevant products.

Connected with the owner’s permission

  • Bank accountsThrough Open Banking, including accounts held with other providers
  • Accounting softwareFor example Xero and QuickBooks Online
  • Commerce platformsFor example Shopify
  • The owner’s plansWhat they tell Coach about the business and where they want to take it

Your app, with your branding and sign-in

A bank’s business app showing Aoife’s accounts and recent activity, with a Coach panel listing three things worth her attention this week and a button to open Coach.

When a financial need arises

  • Your productsThe owner explores your range and continues into your product journey
  • Your teamThe owner asks to speak to you, and the request reaches your relationship manager or designated team with the context they choose to share

Open Banking provides bank-account data. Accounting and commerce connections are separate, and each is added only when the owner chooses to connect it.

How it works

  1. Open Coach in your app

    Customers reach Coach within your existing experience, using your branding and sign-in.

  2. Connect the business

    With permission, Coach uses Open Banking data and supported accounting and commerce connections, alongside the context the owner provides.

  3. Understand and plan

    The owner can ask questions, explore cash flow, develop a growth idea and keep track of next steps.

  4. Involve your products and team

    Where a financial need arises, the owner can explore your range, continue into your product journey or ask to speak to your team.

Starting with an evaluation

Start with an evaluation using a defined group of customers and agreed success measures. A standalone, Narrative-hosted pilot can precede integration into your app.

What an evaluation involves
  • You choose which small business customers to invite and how they hear about it.
  • We agree success measures with you, such as how often owners return, the actions they take, their feedback on the guidance and requests to speak to your team.
  • In a standalone pilot, owners follow a link from you to a Narrative-hosted version of Coach, which can carry your branding, and connect their business accounts through Open Banking themselves. There is no embedding in your app, no single sign-on and no data feed from your systems.
  • Your security, data protection and AI risk reviews still apply, along with any branding, the product or referral content Coach may use and the invitation to customers.
  • At the end, we review the results with you against your measures and agree whether, and how, to move into your app.
Technical integration Security and governance

What owners do with Coach

Aoife asks Coach what she should focus on this month. Coach answers with three points drawn from 214 transactions: January sales are seasonally low, her jar supplier has raised prices twice, and two shops owe her €3,200. Buttons offer to send reminders or compare suppliers.

Understanding the business

“What should I focus on in the business this month?”

Coach explains what is driving the figures in plain language, and shows which records it used and how current they are.

Coach’s six-month cash forecast for Aoife’s business. The lowest point is €7,600 in March, after an insurance renewal, and the next payments are listed below the chart.
A project called Prepare for the quiet season with two of four steps done. The overdue invoices are chased, the packaging order is moved, and setting aside €3,400 for the insurance renewal is next.

Preparing for upcoming costs and decisions

“How can I be better prepared for the quiet season?”

Coach forecasts the months ahead from the business’s own figures and turns practical steps into a plan, showing what is done and what comes next.

Three growth ideas for Aoife’s business, each with an estimated value and time to test: supplying a regional supermarket, gift boxes for local businesses and a monthly tasting box online.

Planning the next stage of the business

“I think we could do more, but I’m not sure where to start.”

Coach suggests possibilities sized to the business, with an estimate of what each could bring and how long it takes to test.

Coach works out what a larger supermarket order would need: €47,600 of costs before the first payment, leaving a gap of about €40,000 after Aoife’s own cash, with a button to involve her bank.
Aoife chooses what to share with her bank before anything is sent: her request, her cash flow forecast and the contract summary, but not her full transaction history.

Involving the provider

“What would I need in place to take on a larger order?”

Coach sets out the costs, timing and options. If the owner wants to go further, they choose to involve their provider and see what will be shared.

Built from expertise in finance, behavioural science and AI. The people behind Coach

See Narrative Coach in action.

We’ll give you a demo of Narrative Coach and the customer experience it creates.

Talk to us