This Wristband Will Give You an Electric Shock if You go Into Your Overdraft

Wristband to Control Overspending

Individuals with a weakness of overspending can now have a saviour in the form of a wristband which tends to help in breaking this bad habit. A British company in partnership with Pavlok tends to give users electric shocks in helping them to break this bad habit of overspending, triggering the device when users seem to be spending too much money. The £120 device which would be in operation toward the end of the year was invented by finance technology company Intelligent Environments which identifies overspending in a user’s bank account connecting it to Pavlok to send them a shock or Nest, the smart thermostat of Google to turn down their heating.

David Webber, chief executive of Intelligent Environments had stated that `this is all about giving customers the option to control how they tend to spend money’. Known as Interact IoT, users could set their spending limits and choose how they would like the program to respond. Should a user surpass their self-imposed limit of spending and their bank balance seems to drop below a pre-determined brink, the Interact IoT tends to drop the heating down to a temperature that has been pre-determined by the individual. Reducing the temperature of the heating by three degrees could save around £255 yearly, according to Intelligent Environments. A Google Nest device tends to cost about £200.

Fully Tested & Safe

The Pavlok was initially launched in 2014 to jolt users out of their bad habits like nail biting, over-sleeping and smoking. The makers of the wristband state, that the wristband has been fully tested and seems safe, claiming that the shock tends to cause a slightly uncomfortable feeling though no pains or burns. The wristband had been named after the Russian psychologist Ivan Pavlov who had worked with dogs to prove behaviour can be conditioned by rewards and punishments.

 It had been created by US internet entrepreneur Maneesh Sethi who had famously hired a woman to slap him every time he went on Facebook, at work. It is not known when the tool for the finance monitoring would be made available since it is up to the banks to choose to offer the services to their consumers. Software to banks and financial services companies which supports their mobile apps is provided by Intelligent Environments. Webber had mentioned that `they are the technology behind the Atom Bank which would be the first digital bank and all their customers seem to be interested in this capability’.

Device Linked to Customer’s Bank Account

Clients of the company comprise of the Bank of Ireland, Sainsbury’s Bank, Lloyd’s Bank and Toyota’s financial services business. Presently the software is available, though it will take around six months before the banks tend to offer it to their clients, if they decide to do so. Webber also informed that millennial believed that the new software was very thrilling and something they would certainly like to try. However, older people aged 50 and above seemed to be cautious.Liviu Itoafa, security researcher at Kaspersky Lab had stated that the device seems to link to a customers’ bank account which could be easy for cybercriminals to access bank details.

 Itoafa also cautioned that the company would have to ensure that it had secured the connection between the devices and the bank accounts. The Telegraph had been assured by Intelligent Environments that it had taken the security of the invention rather seriously and that there was no chance of logging on the banking information of the user, through it. Webber has informed that it is totally secure and that there is absolutely no financial or personal information passing into the devices