Research
How We Conduct Research.
Kove exists because financial stress is common and rarely talked about honestly. Part of how we act on that mission is by studying the problem directly, not just building features for it. Here’s how that research works, what it draws from, and how findings get published.
Two Kinds of Research
Our research falls into two categories. Independent studies are original research we run directly, surveys of a specific population about their financial habits and stress, that don’t touch Kove account data at all. Our first published report falls into this category. Aggregated Kove data is the second: as our user base grows, we’ll also produce reports drawn from real, anonymized, aggregated usage data, under the same framework described on our Data page.
How Reports Work
Not all reports are built the same way, and we want that distinction clear upfront.
- Public reports are free, published here, and open to anyone, no login, no paywall.
- Government and nonprofit reports are built on contract: we charge for the analyst time it takes to build them, not for the underlying data, and they’re published publicly after a short delay.
- University-specific reports are built exclusively from students at a partner institution and shared only with that institution, they’re never published publicly.
The same rule applies across all three types.
No report is generated for a group small enough that someone could be identified. The threshold is the lower of 8% of a population or 500 users. That’s a hard floor, not a guideline.
Ethical Review
Where research involves surveying people directly, we hold it to a high bar, informed consent, real anonymization, no data used beyond what people actually agreed to. Our first published study went through formal ethical review via Western Washington University’s Human Research Protections Program, since it was conducted through that channel. Independent research we run going forward follows the same underlying principles, even in cases where a formal university review board isn’t part of the process.
Our First Published Report
Our first published study surveyed 458 students on financial stress and habits. Full findings: kovefinance.com/research/wwu-student-financial-health-2026.
What’s Next
As Kove’s user base grows, we’ll start producing aggregated reports drawn from real usage data, under the same anonymization and threshold standards described on the Data page. Methodology gets published here before any user data goes into a finding, not after.