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Established in Sydney in 2013 and now also operating in the US and Europe, Practifi aims to deliver a new form of technology platform for advice businesses to run the whole organisation, not just part of it. This is a business management system that extends across an enterprise. Leveraging Salesforce as a platform for infrastructure and security, they have added 115 customer objects which can be deployed to meet a range of customer needs. The service is designed to accommodate multi-disciplinary practices that include estate planning and tax advice in addition to financial planning. The system can display a wide range of dashboards and provide a full perspective of all interactions an organisation is having with a client, a family, another extended group of related individuals or entities. It can also identify where multiple clients are supported by the same external third-parties. Wherever possible extensive summaries of key information are contained within a single screen but they can be viewed from multiple different perspectives. This is an end to end business management platform, it does not provide product speciality systems, such as portfolio management or financial planning, or for accountants an accounting platform, but delivers clients the ability to run every workflow across multiple different third party systems all in a single view. This is particularly beneficial for multi-disciplinary firms needed to use individual specialist systems. They can use Salesforce communities to build client portals for individual clients, but do not produce an off the shelf tool. The ideal client is a growth orientated firm who have either complex business themselves, supporting multiple disciplines, very complex processes where they need to bring together several third party systems, or complex clients such as those needed by a ultra high net worth or multi-family office. I am coming across an increasing number of situations where there is a need to connect different professional specialities within larger organisation works, in the second stances this may have much to offer. (written by Ian McKenna) Founded in 2010, the company have 700 clients live on their platform with close to $2 trillion in assets from firms with under $50 billion in assets, i.e. excluding some of their largest clients who include global banks and asset managers. InvestCloud have created over 300 different apps which can be combined to create a wide range of content, either as end-to-end solutions or as gap filling components to supply features and functionality which an organisation may not have in their native technology proposition. They will deliver as much or as little as a customer needs. You don’t have to take the full suite of their services. Prioritising design as a core competence means propositions can support different personas from the very digitally savvy to traditional analogue customers. Services range from client portals, adviser portals, digital on-boarding, financial planning and a wide range of other functions. It is worth looking at their periodic table of financial apps at investcloud.com to get a feel for the full range of options. If you look at the table it highlights InvestCloud expertise in Experience (InvestCloud Blue), Management (InvestCloud Orange) Analytics InvestCloud Black and Processing InvestCloud Green. All services are fully mobile optimised and tablet-enabled. This summer they acquired the rplan business set up by former Cofunds tech guru Andy Creak, who will be well known to anyone in the UK investment industry. This demo really only scratched the surface of what can be offered by the firm who are becoming and increasingly significant player. (written by Ian McKenna) Founded in 2016, Clearnomics is a report writing tool to provide advisers and wealth managers with detailed market and economic insights for their clients via desktop, mobile and tablet devices. Using a series of pre-programmed online questions, with bespoke customisation available, the adviser is able to select specific data items such as stock market and investment performance, which is of particular interest to the client, over a desired timeframe. This will automatically create a ‘chart book’ using a combination of their Intelligent Assistant and API feeds, which can be adviser-branded and saved to the client record for use as part of the advice process in order to save the adviser time in conducting their own lengthy research documents. (Written by Jason Green) Smartleaf is an automated rebalancing platform tool to improve efficiency and compliance for advisers. The company was founded in 1999 originally as a D2C offering many years before the term ‘robo’ was coined. In 2003 they gained their first Bank Trust client and the proposition seen today was developed. Smartleaf provides highly automated tax management, at scale, for any sized portfolio ranging from $100,000,000, open architecture UMA accounts, to $5 robo equity investments which in turn can save more in taxes on average than what is paid in fees. Distributing via three product channels, the service is used by over 1,000 advisers, TAMPs (Turn Key Asset Platforms) and robo clients. The number of end users has not been disclosed. Everyday each account is rebalanced using a series of filters and queries which select various accounts and trades. These filters are all set by the client so that Smartleaf can trade the required accounts when necessary. The system understands which accounts need to be traded and which don’t (such as unknown securities). This produces tax savings and reduces tracking errors in the portfolio and makes it more aligned to the client’s desired asset allocation and goals. Each trade which is suggested by Smartleaf is assigned a cost benefit score. This identifies the commissions and taxes (cost) and how much closer this trade will get the client to their chosen goal or targets (benefits). Portfolio health check reports for advisers are also produced to give to clients which demonstrate the savings made via the tax optimisation. The average taxes saved for accounts managed on Smartleaf last year was 1.60% of portfolio value, which is more than most adviser fees. (Written by Jason Green)

New PFM techniques demonstrated at Finovate have the potential to facilitate totally new ways to help consumers get the savings habitat Last week’s new expanded format Finovate shone, as always, a spotlight on a diverse wealth of exciting ways to use technology to enhance the financial services industry. One of the challenges of attending the show is there is so much to take in. Rather than try and address multiple areas in a single summary I’m going to break down my review of the show to look at different areas. In a separate blogs I will consider the solution that for me was the overall highlight of the show, presenting quite simply the best US automated advice service I have ever seen and in a further summary I will look at the other presentations which fall outside my normal focus of WealthTech but provided stimulating ideas which I intend to progress separately. In this blog however I want to focus on a subject which is increasingly important to the UK market in the run-up to the launch of Open Banking next January. This is what has historically been known as Personal Financial Management tools, however increasingly the technology suppliers offering solutions in this market are trying to rebrand the services into different definitions. For me PFM works very well however it appears these organisations want to be seen as delivering more than just aggregated information. There were three different presentations from organisations in this field which really stood out to me at Finovate Fall, each was exceptional in its own right. I have long been a huge fan of MX, indeed I would go so far as to say in my opinion they are the best in the world at Personal Financial Management and aggregation. Rather than display their latest innovations as they frequently do at Finovate their team focused on hard numbers that make a compelling case for embracing these services. If non-customers who adopt a bank’s PFM are three times as likely to open a current account within a year and typically deposit four times as much money does this not make a strong case for delivering similar services to pensions and savings customers? MX have reputation for achieving adoption rates way beyond their competition and attribute much of this to the breadth, depth and quality of aggregation data cleansing and enhancement. This should be a key factor for UK PFMs to consider. Another key point they raised was the importance of high app ratings to get people to download and use them. Apps with 2 stars will typically only achieve a 15% download rate and 3 stars only 46% download compared with a 96% download rate for 4-star apps. This translated to a six-fold increase in use where business switched from low-scoring apps to higher rated ones. Clearly getting positive app reviews should be at the centre of any roll-out strategy. Moven are a highly respected name in PFM who have quietly entered the UK. After launching with TD Bank in Canada and Westpac in New Zealand they opened on these shores in February. I believe Moven’s service can provide huge benefits to the pension industry. In my view few pension providers fully recognise the potential impact of the pending rises in auto enrolment contributions will have on customers on national average earnings. At this level of income it is not that people don’t want to save but that they are under such financial pressure that they can’t afford to save unless we can help them find economies. Moven users are typically able to reduce their discretionary spending by between 4% - 8% per month. In addition, the service enables users to identify things they want and save towards them. It helps them track multiple goals and prioritise them recognising that users won't be able to achieve everything they want. Nudges are provided to encourage positive savings behaviour and recognise when reductions in discretionary spend have been achieved. The service will also identify further economies a user can make and it’s really easy for them to set personal spending targets. Looking at the practical impact their new “stash” Service has actually resulted in 25% of customers opening savings accounts even though no interest was offered! To me that seems to be exactly the sort of services pension providers should be deploying to help auto enrolment customers adjust to the increased contribution levels coming in the near future. As there are interactions directly at the operating system level within mobile devices we are able to provide far more intuitive and instant notifications. Currently Moven haven’t deployed all their capability to the UK but based on their ability to deliver rapid deployment and recognition of the use of such services in a long-term savings environment I see them as an organisation who should be on any supplier shortlist for potential institutional delivery of PFM. Yodlee’s Finovate presentation was strongly focused towards the savings, financial wellness and wealth management industries. The influence of parent company Envestnet is clear to see. From my own conversations with Envestnet I know they saw Yodlee as the silver bullet to complement their impressive range of technology solutions for institutions and advisers. At the show they demonstrated a Financial Coach powered by Artificial Intelligence. Big data sets are invaluable when building AI so Yodlee being able to base their analysis on over 23 million users, accounting for $20 trillion spending, income and investment data provides a strong foundation. The financial coach monitors an individual’s spending, saving, borrowing and planning, and provides suitable guidance. The process begins by looking at an individual’s spending/income ratio and timeliness of bill payment. In the context of savings the service considers an individual’s provision for emergency funds and also their long-term savings plans. A traffic lights approach is taken to identifying situations where additional guidance would be beneficial based on mining the 70 billion transactions in their records. People like you analytics, geolocation, and discount offers can be used to identify potential savings. To me these are potentially powerful tools that could be used to build significant trust with customers, my only question is to what extent will they have been localised for UK use. If you are interested in understanding more about how Personal Financial Management can transform customer relationships in pensions, savings and wealth management see our new insight study, “Personal Financial Management- How to fix the UK’s Broken Relationship with Savings”

Honest. Constructive. Objective. No Bull. We all have a comfort zone at work. Topics which we could talk about until the cows come home. WealthTech propositions are my bread and butter, they sit very comfortably in my ‘safe place’. A number of new tools, ‘artificial intelligence’, ‘machine learning’, and ‘deep learning’, have rapidly crept into the WealthTech space. These self-teaching systems are busy revolutionising many industries. WealthTech is no exception. You need to ask yourself whether you want to jump on the train and work them into your ‘safe place’, or rather wait for the next train to pull in. My fear with the latter is that you'll be late! It’s true that artificial intelligence has been around for decades, but for the majority, it’s something we have typically reserved for the latest James Bond movie. These tools crop up regularly in our research. I talk in length to various proposition owners about how these technologies are being implemented. More often than not, they are on their ‘to do list’ and still to be added to their roadmap. “I’ll get back to you on that Kerry” “We can’t disclose anything at the moment, but we’re working on it” There is a lot of chatter about these innovative technologies. A few firms are already rolling out such services in the real world. It's these that I want to take a look at today. To the majority of us, it’s something new. You need a certain level of skill to understand how it works. Your brain needs to tick a certain way. It’s not always important to understand the inner workings of these technologies and algorithms. It is important however, to understand how they are going to change the way we design and deliver financial services. Hedgeable Every now and then I speak to an organisation which turns everything on its head. This is exactly what happened when we met Hedgeable. They are primarily a technology company. Having successfully developed and deployed its own digital wealth platform in the US in 2009, the company decided to open up its architecture and partner with organisations across the globe. The technology consists of four key open application programming interfaces (APIs). Partner organisations will use these open APIs to form the infrastructure / back end of their digital wealth proposition. The API’s are available on a modular basis so you can pick and choose which ones best suit your business. Hedgeable’s co-founder, Mike Kane, described the process as ‘plugging in’ their API’s into your existing framework. Once you have the back end in place, you can add on a number of optional customer facing modules. One of these, being a truly fascinating artificial intelligence module. The following video from the recent Finovate Spring conference gives a great feel for the system. Hedgeable AI Lab Digital Wealth Insights analysts are producing a more extensive analysis of Hedgeable’s functionality which will be available from this site shortly. Abaka We recently reviewed Abaka’s intelligent savings proposition targeted at employers looking to improve the financial wellbeing of their employees. (see their full review here) What makes Abaka different from other workplace propositions is that its powered by artificial intelligence and delivered via both a mobile App and a chatbot called AVA. This technology collates and translates the employee’s data to provide insight and nudges into their personal financial life. It also provides comparisons of their financial life against that of their peers or others with similar circumstances as themselves. Crucially, Hedgeable and Abaka are both LIVE physical propositions available to use in the UK today. We are in an era where technology can take our data, read it, understand it, and provide us with proactive insights to make changes before reaching a particular unhealthy situation. Over the course of the next few months I’ll be looking at ways in which artificial intelligence is changing the way we develop and deliver financial services. I highly recommend getting on the artificial intelligence train sooner rather than later. Step out of your comfort zone. It’s incredibly exciting!

Honest. Constructive. Objective. No Bull. Never has a term rung so true. Many loud, rambunctious and confident announcements have been made in the press and via social media the past six months about the launch of innovative, industry changing, kitchen sink inclusive, WealthTech propositions. In the hope that a new proposition will be well received and communicated to our audience, we are approached by these organisations, with much gusto, and told of the wonders of their tools. That’s not how we roll. When it comes time to lift the actual bonnet and start our review, the process is promptly placed ‘on hold until further notice’. Why? Is there nothing to show for all the chatter? A particular favorite of mine, are the three savings or budgeting applications that I downloaded onto my mobile last year which claim to automatically assist you find various savings. Still pending! Large traditional institutions have called in with incredible enthusiasm, announcing the imminent launch of their very own robo adviser. When it comes down to the details, suddenly everything goes dark. Readers with roots in Africa, will relate when I liken these propositions to the feathered phenomenon, the Hadeda bird (Football fans may identify more closely with the flying vuvuzela!) "haa-haa-haa-de-dah" 'Marketed but not yet launched’ is the official standpoint. ‘Jumping the gun’ or ‘all talk and little action’ may be a couple of ways to explain it, but my gut tells me that neither of these is typically true. Understandably, it’s important to create interest, establish positioning, grow your beta community, engage the industry and entice investors. Equally, we are talking about a regulated environment here, so crucially you would have to get your compliance on point. I wonder however, whether this premature marketing launch instead harms a proposition’s first impression and opportunity to capture their target audience. From my perspective, I can't help but feel disappointed and slightly skeptical. Importantly, I'm not talking about the odd hadeda here and there! I'm talking about a full on flock of these big flappers. Vaporware assumes that the organisations making these announcements have no intention of actually releasing the tech / functionality any time soon. Again, my gut tells me that this is not the intention, but rather a cautionary trend within the UK industry. We simply seek perfection before taking that first step. Please, don’t miss the boat! Waiting for the perfect product could take months or even years. Each month that goes by, another few propositions are launched, taking a chunk out of your target audience. Get the fundamentals right first. Absolutely. But then go for it! Introducing new and improved functionality as and when you have it has many advantages: · An agile development process can be exciting for users. · It shows them you are continuously adapting and evolving. · You can change your priorities according to demand and not a deadline. · It will force you to innovate from within more regularly. Be honest with your audience. Tell them what is coming. Tell them how you are building things to benefit them. Ask them for help and then tell them you listened. Reward them for their loyalty. People like honesty. Approach your users with your cards on the table. You will be giving them a reason to stay. That better day may never come. Your competitors are already leaving the harbor. Stand up. Be present. Be brave. Own it. Launching a half-baked proposition today without all of the ‘bells and whistles’, may put you in a better position than if you waited for that perfect bake.

Honest. Constructive. Objective. No Bull. "I've got this" - my final thought before I walked out my front door and faced the day we launched http://www.digitalwealthinsights.com/ At F&TRC usually they come to us. They pay us. They ask us to help them 'fix it', 'build it' or 'measure it'. Not this time! With our new service we went to them. We told them. We are going to 'review it', 'compare it' and 'rate it'! I must give credit where it is due. 90% of organisations opened their doors and welcomed us in. They were proud of what they had created. Analysing a single proposition from the ground up, including the size of their underwear, teaches you a hell of a lot about it. Analysing multiple propositions, teaches you about the industry. It identifies trends, and offers up valuable perspectives from numerous angles. Yes, it's our intention to share these with you! The brief for Digital Wealth Insights is to be thorough. The objective is to provide unbiased, constructive and honest analysis of each proposition we select. Above all else, it had to be accurate! Each review was sent back to it's 'owner' to welcome challenges, debate reasoning, and check against accuracy. Many an hour I sat with bated breath waiting for the phone to ring, or my inbox to beep with messages from irate founders, cheesed off developers, and maniacal MDs. If you want to run with the 'Big Dogs' you've got to learn to take a pee in the long grass! Right? Right! 'Difficult' conversations are now par for the course, a daily hazard of my day to day job. Or so I thought. Instead what I found was intelligent debate, gratitude for the transparency, and acceptance of our measures. It is safe to say that there is no ‘one size fits all in FinTech!’ I’ve met with; Individual entrepreneurs who have put their heart, soul and life savings into their passion to help other people. Industry giants with years at the helm looking to modernise their offerings. Groups of friends / colleagues who have pooled their crazy high IQ’s and mind boggling skill sets, into providing a service for the ‘people’ Technology gurus who have been building bridges and plugging holes all over the industry. So much so, that they now have a full suite of functionality to offer their own standalone product. As an analyst of UK WealthTech propositions, I’ve picked up a few overarching pearls of wisdom these past few months: Showing excellence doesn't necessarily mean having all the bells and whistles. It's also an attitude, a drive, and a commitment to achieving something that actually makes a difference. Most WealthTech players are heading in the same direction. If you want to stand out from the crowd, think of delivering the ordinary in an extraordinary way. Options, always give the end user options. We are not all cut from the same cloth. Customisation is a USP. The ability and depth of customisation is crucial for customer longevity. Simple, keep it simple. (Do offer the complicated option, but keep it simple first). Education breeds security. Security breeds contentment. Contentment breeds longevity. Longevity breeds a well-funded bottom line. It all starts with education! The foundations are well and truly down! Where is the innovation? Don't get comfortable. I get it. You want to make sure you perfect your current proposition. But don't lose sight, keep up, innovate from within. (Before someone innovates for you) The opportunity is there. It's everywhere. Digital Wealth Insights was launched with an initial set of 20 propositions: Each week we will be adding more proposition reviews to the service. The next week we plan to look at Abaka and Intelliflo’s automated advice process. As more trends, facts and figures emerge we intend to share these with you through our various ‘Digital Wealth Insights’ social media accounts. To see a summary of our analysis identifying the areas of strengths and where we believe there is scope for improvement visit http://www.digitalwealthinsights.com/ (This does require you to register to the service to gain access to our free summary of each proposition). Further detailed analysis of the various propositions can also be accessed via this link. However, please note there is a subscription fee for the additional level of information.

Honest. Constructive. Objective. No Bull. It was time! To take on the PFM’s (Personal Financial Managers) Personally, I've been most excited to get stuck into analysing these as they are best placed in helping me manage my family’s ‘financial baggage’. (By baggage I’m really referring to the husband’s constant care and attention for his bicycle) Wikipedia defines Personal Financial Management as: “Software that helps users manage their money. PFM often lets users categorize transactions and add accounts from multiple institutions into a single view. PFM also typically includes data visualizations such as spending trends, budgets and net worth.” Many PFM’s in the UK can hold their hand up high in chanting “Yes we can!” “Yes we do!” But is this really enough? This week I signed up and aggregated all of my banking / credit accounts with four of the UK’s direct to consumer PFM’s. www.moneyhub.com www.moneydashboard.com www.moneymojo.co.uk www.pariti.com (Totally missed the ‘name yourself money’ memo) A full review of each proposition can be accessed shortly via www.digitalwealthinsights.com. I’ve been biding my time waiting for the perfect moment to introduce the husband to an objective 3rd party which would inadvertently point out his obscene spending on all things bicycle related. Other positives I’ll be seeking include; · What’s yours is yours, what’s mine is mine, what’s ours is (mi..) ours. · No longer would amazon purchases be unaccountable to a specific individual (“It wasn’t me”). · A centralised platform would mean a reduction in arguments about whether my hair cut constitutes as ‘personal spending’ (i.e out of my own personal account) or ‘joint spending’ (i.e out of our household spending account). · A mechanism to encourage us to eat at home more often (health, weight and budgeting benefits to be gained here). · Something, anything to help us (him) stop wasting money on unnecessary items. · Redirect budget reductions towards short term savings goals we can enjoy as a family. (age-defying botox for mid-30s mom of a toddler) You get where I’m going… Simplicity! Cohesiveness! Clarity! Answers! PFM’s have the power to significantly help the end user make positive changes to their ultimate ‘bottom line’ today, and better prepare them for longer term savings. My experience in analysing these propositions in the UK is that the majority are not honing in on that power (yet). PFM’ing is not relaxing. No matter the level of automation or real-time updates, all four PFM’s required a significant amount of manual interaction from myself. (I assume this will continue for an initial phase whilst the PFM learns more about your spending categories and establishes trends) Whilst aggregation and automated categorisation accounts for a majority of the data, it is important that it is personalised and checked for it’s accuracy by the user. Worryingly, no two PFM’s of the four I analysed produced the same output (in any respect). One thing they did agree on, was that the ‘financial baggage’ in our family could be closer to home than I thought. (oops – sorry husband) A well delivered PFM provides you with an overview of where you are now, how you got there, and what to expect going forward based on historical trends. Some offer the ability to use these insights to set goals and change trends. Our ‘Digital Wealth Insights report’ provides our full analysis and identifies who of the four PFM’s is the clear front runner. This PFM provided access to real-time budget management, high levels of accuracy of it’s automatic categorisation, the ability to create personalised forecasts, and the creation and tracking of spending goals. In addition it offers simple personalisation and great visuals of your income, expenditure and forecasting. Will I continue to use either of the four PFM’s analysed this week? Honestly, I’m not sure. The question I ask myself is, do they help me solve any of my personal ‘financial baggage’? In part, yes. But it’s not enough to make a difference. (Besides, I need to spend a bit of time reducing my spending at certain retailers first, before introducing the husband to the objective 3rd party!). Over the course of the next few weeks I’ll be turning to the Business to Business market and the likes of Intelliflo, moneyinfo and AON’s Big Blue in search of a PFM that can make a difference. Adding value through tools such as micro savings, debt managers (not just consolidators) and smart spending to actively engage their end users in physically making changes is how you put the power into PFM. Watch this space. See http://www.digitalwealthinsights.com/ to follow our more detailed insights and analysis of automated financial services in the UK.

Honest. Constructive. Objective. No Bull Nothing quite wakes you up like the dark mirrored recesses of Soho's Groucho club (inclusive of lewd phallic images on the walls) first thing on a Monday morning. Although Shawn Brayman (President & CEO of globalcash flow planning software supplier PlanPlus and the new miPlan+ robo advice engine) came close with his opening statements during the Algos4Robos seminar hosted by Finametrica. "A new Robo-advisor is launched every three days in the US" Say what!!! My initial instinct was 'panic'. That’s a lot of robos! It's my day job to analyse and identify the merits, fouls and trends of robots and similar services around the world providing financial advice and guidance. Actually it's great news. Great for the consumer, great for innovation, great for competition, great for me (I should have a day job for quite a while longer), and great for the UK. We tend to follow US trends quite closely, identifying what does and doesn’t work (my job), and learning from their mistakes. What really stood out from their demonstration at first glance, was their approach to ensuring that the automated advice process was actually suitable for each individual client. They recognise that there can be a scientific approach to automated investing but that automation also needs to be able to recognise when scientific academics don’t suit. They prefer to nudge the user to communicate with a person with professional judgment instead. Paul Resnik, Director and Cofounder of FinaMetrica, is no stranger to building software across the World. His experience has taught him that common US FinTech mentality is to deliver as much as they can, as long as they deliver it today. The UK’s approach is rather to sit on it, wait until everything is in place, double check, and then deliver. If I had a pound for every time I heard “can we postpone your analysis of us until said date”, I’d only be needing a half-day job. This week highlighted two British organisations who have put in the man hours and clearly spent a lot of time developing a robust set of functionality, with the end-consumer at the heart of the proposition. It was great being British this week! I put Moneybox (www.moneyboxapp.com) and Wealthify (www.wealthify.com), who are both offering non-advised investment propositions in the UK, through our full analysis process this week. Look out for our benchmarking summary soon Moneybox has been a big in-house favourite amongst the DigitalWealthInsights team since its launch in August this year. It’s been one of the very few propositions to incorporate micro savings into it’s proposition. I myself saved £94 over six weeks into my ISA simply by rounding up all my spending to the nearest £1. Wealthify has a very effective, streamlined and engaging customer journey. It also incorporates a unique socialisation technique through the use of it’s member ‘circles’. I believe Wealthify is in the front row of organisations leading the way to lasting customer longevity. I’d have no problem recommending either of the above to my friends and family. I found myself schmoozing, shoulder to shoulder, with suited and booted fund managers at the London Stock Exchange on Tuesday. Novia hosted an event on the merits of investing in ETFs and at the same time introduced Copia, a subsidiary of theirs offering an investment range using 100% of ETFs. I'm pretty confident that I’d smash a pub quiz now on the difference between a tracker fund and an ETF. Some interesting data (and numbers almost as big as pie came from the event). For my purposes it was encouraging to see how automated advice propositions were ahead of the platforms in leading the way to offering lower cost ETFs to their clients. The week ended with my first rodeo at a chatbot bootcamp hosted by Personetics. The bot landscape is already substantial. Did you know there are already 35 000 chatbots integrated with Facebook. I’d seen all the adverts about Amazon Alexa, well she is a bot as well! The UK doesn’t rate it very much at the moment but let’s give her a break, she is the first of her kind. It’s possible that Google will have a similar bot out just in time for Christmas. 2017 is going to be the year of the Bot. Is the bot going to start becoming another member of our family? In fact, after seeing all the 'bot action' on Friday, it's pretty conceivable that a proactive cheeky little bot will be shouting at you from the fireplace in your lounge, telling you that you shouldn’t have had that extra drink at the pub quiz last night, but rather put it towards your ISA! It’s the potential of the bot that I can’t get off of my mind this week. See http://www.digitalwealthinsights.com/ to follow our more detailed insights and analysis of automated financial services in the UK.

Honest. Constructive. Objective. No Bull Born in the early 1980s, I’ve been comfortably sitting on the fence between Gen X and Gen Me (Millennial), falling whichever way I need, depending on whom I’m speaking to. I’m having to learn to speak to people of all ages, less or more (or much more) intelligent than myself and with differing levels of corporate experience. This week has taught me a lot about the ‘true millennial’. Fast thinking and fast to commit. They literally have no bureaucratic red tape to cross whatsoever (which is refreshing). They suck you dry of information, providing very little in return (which is clever). They are brave (which makes them a threat). They began their journey with a perfectly clean sheet, devoid of any legacy systems (which means they have no preconceived baggage) Instead of perpetuating established businesses' preconceived customer journeys they are truly innovating new ways to engage with financial services (which they believe will give them customer longevity). They don’t call you back! Each day I focus on a single automated proposition and analyse everything about it. Wherever possible, I physically try it out for myself. I measure it against a set of core components and functionality. I speak at length to the developers and founders about how it came about, their route to market and what their plans are for the future. Here is who stood out for me this week: Mulalo The founders of http://mulalo.co.uk/ really made me stop, look up and listen. Mulalo is a FinTech start-up soon to be releasing the beta version of their savings app. The Founders, Matt Pritchard and Julian Bourne are straight out of University, buzzing with excellent ideas, hungry to learn, and driven to provide a financial experience to their users based on their own need to find a better way to save. Not only did these true millennials call me back, but their passion to build a service which would actively help users save money on a daily basis is why I would put Mulalo on my list of ‘who to watch’ in 2017. Simples Switching over to Insurance, www.my.simples.uk.com has an exciting proposition currently in beta where they have incorporated ‘machine learning’ algorithms and a chatbot to provide their users with a platform that aggregates their general insurance policies. It presents the key information back to the user in a format which is easy to understand. The idea behind this is to increase the user’s understanding of what they are covered for, and ultimately ensure that they have appropriate / sufficient cover in place. As the user interacts more and more with the service, it is expected that their customer experience will improve as the machine learns more about them. To assist engagement, Simples has implemented a ‘chatbot feature’ which enables users to text Simples on-the-go to request instant up to date policy information as and when the need it. Whilst the service is still in it’s infancy it is making great waves into the insurance market by helping the end consumer better understand and manage their insurance portfolio. Simples is looking to expand their services to the wider industry including energy suppliers, health insurers and mortgage providers. I can't help thinking how this could potentially benefit the Protection industry by providing some much needed clarity and simplification on complex issues such as policy conditions. Some of the people I'm catching up with next week include Moneybox, Planplus, My Future Now and Wealthify. (No millennial start-ups in the diary as yet, as they still haven't called back) Keep an eye out for the list of who floated my FinTech boat. See http://www.digitalwealthinsights.com/ to follow our more detailed insights and analysis of automated financial services in the UK.

Our income, expenditure and debt define how we live our lives today, tomorrow and ultimately into future. Is it not crucial therefore to ensure that every person gets the management of these fundamental processes right before approaching any actual investment, protection or retirement advice? Consumer Debt The Office for Budget Responsibility identified that credit card debt in May 2016 was £2,397 per household. Based on an average interest rate and minimum payment this would take 25 years and 6 months to repay. It also suggested that consumer borrowing trends will result in most UK households spending more than they earn for the rest of the decade. Micro Savings The savings landscape is changing. There is no longer any reason for savings to be regular or centered on a single long-term goal now that there are micro saving tools to encourage consumers to save little and save often, as and when funds become available. Of all the propositions I analyse on a daily basis there are very few with which I actively engage. Moneybox (www.moneyboxapp.com) is an exception. It is a great example of using micro savings to contribute towards an ISA or Investment account. I was able to save £94 in six weeks simply by rounding up my daily spending transactions to the nearest £1. Cleo is another example of a Chatbot (www.meetcleo.com) budgeting tool which I use regularly. Instead of logging into my on-line banking or trying to make sense of a pie chart, I am able to send a simple text to Cleo to get the information I need instantly. Whilst these two tools don’t have all the optimal functionality, they actively help me save and move towards a better financial life. To provide a truly effective automated proposition it is crucial that we focus on helping the consumer build their financial life from the ground up. We would encourage those organisations building automated financial service propositions to think of the end consumer and the journey they need to take in order to get in a position to actively engage in long term savings. Further access to our analysis can be found at www.digitalwealthinsights.com (currently in beta). We aim to provide our audience with objective comparisons alongside our own informed analysis of automated financial service propositions, market trends and clarity around topics which typically create confusion.

Technology is bringing about one of the biggest storms to hit civilisation as we know it, the Digital Age, leaving in its wake significant changes to the way we engage in our daily activities and carry out our jobs. Financial Services is fast approaching the eye of the ‘digital storm’. It’s hard not to get lost in the plethora and excitement of it all with FinTech, Big Data, robo-advice and Chatbots all making their debut. Established financial service organisations preferring to wait out the storm in the hope that it passes, will very shortly find their business being buffeted by organisations standing out in the open field, embracing the storm head on with conducting rods in their hands. Like it or not, this storm isn’t passing. Although initially behind the FinTech curve, not only is the UK financial services catching up to the rest of the world in developing and providing automated financial services, but having learnt from early international adopters, in some cases are already showing signs of leading edge superior functionality. With an actively engaged, forward thinking, and pro-digital government and regulatory body you can safely bet on the UK continuing to make great waves into automating financial services. The main driver for government in automating financial services is to engage the mass market in saving for their future. The diagram below identifies the key steps a consumer should go through on the journey towards building a sustainable and successful ‘Financial Life’. Multiple studies identify one of the greatest causes of human stress, ill health and unhappiness is the lack of knowledge of how to manage income, expenditure and debt. Our analysis highlights a glaring failure within most of the market is the lack of focus on assisting the consumer in managing these three components, in order to help them prepare for longer term savings. For consumers, managing their finances can involve making some of the most important and challenging decisions of their lives, yet they frequently do not have the means to understand the information on which such decisions should be based, nor do they have support in making the right choice. While the UK is churning out a significant number of low cost investment propositions (step 6), our analysis identifies a gaping hole in the market. This presents a real danger that new services may not penetrate the mass market. These consumers do not currently have either the financial education or the financial means to embrace these low cost automated investment propositions. We crawled before we walked, before we ran. Each of us went on a personal journey, taking our bumps and bruises along the way, before we were able to run. So too is this true in our financial life. To assist consumers actively engage in their long term savings goals (step 6) it is imperative that we take them on a journey from the very beginning and assist them in dealing with their finances of today. © F&TRC 2016

Landscape of UK Automated Financial Services propositions F&TRC’s DigitalWealthInsights.com team are actively monitoring over 130 organisations within the UK that are currently in various stages of developing their digital financial service propositions for consumers. Like most things in life we start at the beginning and continue our journey, progressing one step at a time, until we reach the end goal. So too should this be applied to our Financial Life. My Financial Life Step 1: My Financial overview. How am I doing? Get an overview of your current financial situation i.e. income, outgoings, assets and liabilities. Identify the problem. Step 2: Reduce debt & start micro savings. Take action. Engage in real-time budget planners, debt management and micro savings tools to improve the way you manage our daily income, expenditure and debt. Step 3: Emergency cash reserve. Build up a cash saving’s pot for those unforeseen emergencies, typically a cash ISA / savings account. Step 4: Protect myself and my family. Consider which protection policies need to implemented to protect yourself / family against loss of income, illness, death etc. Step 5: Buy a home. Look to invest in an asset to build independence and security for your family. Step 6: Start investing for medium to long term savings goals. Consider contributing towards pension savings, ISA and investment accounts. Step 7: How do I want to retire. Determine your income, expenditure, debt, level of savings and ill health options in retirement. The graph below illustrates which step of the consumer’s financial life the various propositions we are analysing cater for. 68% of automated financial service propositions provide an on-line investment service. Of these propositions approximately 80% do not address the consumer’s income, expenditure and debt (steps 1 -3), but instead jump right in at assisting the customer towards investing for the medium to long term (step 6.) The government’s motivation for driving the automation of financial services is to engage the mass market in saving for their future. To be able to save for the future, it is critical that we understand how to save for today first. Research conducted by PWC in 2015 identified that 63% of the employees they surveyed were not saving for retirement because they had too many other expenses and 46% said they had debt to pay off first. Consumers need assistance in getting the relationship between the three key elements, income, expenditure and debt working well and to a level where they physically have sufficient surplus income available to allocate towards long term savings. Is it fair then to say that 80% of automated investment propositions currently in the UK are not optimised to help the mass market with their long term savings? My question then is, how much longevity and customer loyalty will these propositions have when the debt managers and micro savings tools start to gain momentum by actively helping customers improve their financial life?