Refinery29 Australia Launches Iconic “Money Diaries” Franchise Partnership With Money By Afterpay

Refinery29 Australia, the leading media and entertainment destination focused on women and underrepresented voices, has today launched the local version of the brand’s most successful content franchise: Money Diaries.

In a 12-month partnership with Afterpay to coincide with the launch of its new money and lifestyle app Money By Afterpay next month, Money Diaries gives Refinery29 readers an up-close-and-personal look at the financial lives of anonymous millennials who track and share every detail of their spending over seven days.

Since the launch of Money Diaries on Refinery29 US in early 2016, the voyeuristic franchise has become a global sensation, with a bestselling book, a popular podcast and highly engaged Facebook groups (both in the US and UK) of diehard Money Diaries fans to its name.

Refinery29 Australia will publish bi-weekly Money Diaries to its site and social channels, as well as the Money By Afterpay app, and will shortly launch a Money Diaries Australia Facebook Group where it plans to foster a safe space to talk finances.

Zahra Campbell-Avenell, Refinery29 Australia’s head of editorial, said that Refinery29 Australia readers have been crying out for Money Diaries since long before the site’s launch: “If there’s one thing we heard most from people in the lead up to the launch of Refinery29 Australia, it was ‘When are you launching Money Diaries?!’.”

“It’s such a well-loved content franchise the world over, and a huge testament to the role it plays in helping to remove the shame, guilt and fear surrounding the topic of money, which remains such a taboo. We couldn’t be more excited to partner with the Money By Afterpay app to launch Money Diaries, with the goal of making Australian women and underrepresented people feel more confident about their finances – no matter how much money they make or what they spend it on.”

Money Diaries will also be added inspiration for Money By Afterpay customers using one of the app’s most unique features, Money Stories: a data-driven social-media style approach to providing personalised spending and saving insights.

It will offer daily and weekly bespoke insights into each customer’s earnings, spending and saving within the Money app, as well as their BNPL balance. What makes the feature unique is the way Money Stories will help inspire action with thought-provoking ideas, tips and tricks that customers can consider.

This approach directly addresses one of the most critical needs identified by Afterpay customers – helping them build their money confidence in a simple and easy-to-use way.

Jackie Lee-Joe, global head of customer, content & marketing for money by Afterpay, says the partnership with Refinery29 Australia is a critical opportunity to connect Money by Afterpay with an important target audience: “We’ve spent the last 12 months obsessed with the customer we’re building Money by Afterpay for and we’ve sought out more than 2,100 hours of conversations, content and insights from Gen Z and Millennials.”

“We were really looking to understand not just what they want from a money app but what they need when it comes to feeling more empowered about money. Overwhelmingly, one of the key things we heard was that this audience wants to build their money confidence – through small steps, personalised experiences and positive conversations.”

“We’re thrilled to do exactly that with the Refinery29 Australia team and its much loved Money Diaries franchise by making previously taboo conversations about money fun, inspiring and educational at the same time.”

Journalist Alexandra Koster – formerly of Finder, where she worked across the money and insurance verticals – will serve as the first Money Diaries Australia Editor, working closely with the wider Refinery29 Australia team to grow the content franchise in the Australian market.

Refinery29 Australia launched on July 29 and has spearheaded multiple large-scale initiatives in the months since, including We Are Many, a partnership with Getty Images to create stock photo libraries that spotlight multiple underrepresented communities in Australia, and Fired Up, an always-on initiative that aims to uncover and dismantle the serious issue of workplace sexual harassment and assault.