We spoke with Shane Mac, CEO of XMTP Labs, about how he uses Mercury Personal to manage his personal finances and angel investments.
Feature: Mercury Personal
Company: XMTP Labs
CEO: Shane Mac
This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.
How would you describe your philosophy on personal banking?
It should be an ecosystem of ease. To be honest, I don't ever want to have to think about personal banking. It shouldn't take any work from me—if anything, I should just know that it's actually doing all the work for me. And when I do use it, it should feel as simple as sending a text message, which it does with Mercury.
You’ve been using Mercury Personal, our personal bankingMercury is a financial technology company, not a bank. Personal banking services provided by Choice Financial Group; Member FDIC1 solution for a few months now. How does Mercury Personal fit in with the rest of your finance workflows, including your business banking?
As a founder, your life and work are really one and the same. A banking provider that allows me to see the financial foundation of my life and work in one place — and get notified about the things that matter most — makes Mercury the most valuable app on my phone.
The ability to toggle between Mercury Business and Personal is very useful. I use Mercury Business for the companies I co-founded, XMTP Labs and Squared Away, and I use Mercury Personal for personal banking and to manage my angel investments.
On the business side, managing both of my companies on the same platform is so helpful because I can set them up the same way and see where all the money is while still keeping the operations separate.
Meanwhile, with Mercury Personal, I can operate my personal finances as efficiently as my business finances, which saves me a ton of time and frustration. We also use the same finance team across everything, so at the end of the year when everything flows down into Quickbooks, it’s easier for them to close the books.
How does Mercury Personal compare to your past personal banking experiences?
Having used Mercury for business banking, I’ve always enjoyed the user experience. It just completely eliminates the traditional friction points. What really gets me is how seamless the mobile banking experience is and how straightforward the wiring process is — I never need to hunt for my wire info or get on the phone with anyone to send a wire.
Setting up Mercury Personal was very easy, and little features have made a big difference. For example, in the past, changing a debit card PIN code meant sending a note to my bank and waiting seven days for the PIN to arrive in the mail. With Mercury Personal, if I forget my PIN I can log in securely and change it on the fly, allowing me to access my funds immediately.
I found myself memorizing the phone numbers of traditional banks I’ve used because simple tasks like transferring money were such a challenge. Actually, come to think of it, never having to call a bank is what I think makes an incredible bank1 — one focused on amazing software and automation, not manual support in the absence of it. That's Mercury.
What are some other features of Mercury Personal that you’ve found most useful in your day-to-day banking?
The first piece is security. With everything becoming more automated (e.g., robo/automated investing) it doesn't make sense for me to use a bank or private wealth company that only has SMS 2-factor authentication (2FA). It's crazy to me that no major banks support 2FA outside of SMS, it's such a critical flaw. Mercury nails this. I really just want the security of having up to $5M FDIC insurance,
The second piece is automation. Mercury’s software is what makes it magic. I was already familiar with the platform because I use it for business banking, so setting up the workflows for my personal account was especially intuitive.
If you feel comfortable sharing, how do you set up your account? Do you use auto-transfer rules or the Mercury Personal high-yield savings account (HYSA)?
I set a minimum on my checking account and use the Mercury Personal high-yield savings account (HYSA). This allows me to comfortably allocate most of my funds into the HYSA to earn yield while ensuring my checking account always maintains a sufficient balance. It just works like magic.
What’s a feature you’d like to see Mercury build next?
I’d like to see Mercury Personal build an AI component that can help me understand where to save money or automatically cancel things that I’m paying for but not using. I’d love it to start coaching me on how to run my personal life — just like how we run our businesses.
If you’re looking to fundraise, submit your pitch to Investor Connect. To learn more about other ways Mercury Raise can be your founder success platform, click here.
Interested in being featured as a founder spotlight in an upcoming issue of The Messenger newsletter and our blog? Sign up for a Mercury account, then submit your company for consideration here.
Mercury is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services provided by Choice Financial Group and Evolve Bank & Trust ®️; Members FDIC.