Robo Advice Supports Financial Literacy to Build Wealth

Five Degrees added a ‘robo-advisory solution’ to their portfolio. This announcement was made at FinovateEurope 2017, the leading fintech event held yesterday and today in London. Five Degrees opened the event, showcasing a robo- advisory solution, together with their client, Andy Fay, CEO & Founder of Munnypot.

Last year’s September report from the Demos think tank, an independent London-based educational charity, found thousands of Britons suffer from a vicious cycle of financial exclusion, making them more vulnerable to accruing debt and excluded from mainstream consumer services. With automated advice on savings and investments, a broader group of consumers will now be able to have the ability to improve their financial security.

Munnypot (‘munnypot’), which was showcased at FinovateEurope in London on 7 February, uses a simple –WhatsApp-style– chat format to engage with users and determine the right investment options. It also keep them up to date on the progress of their savings. Users can ‘play’ with different scenarios to better understand how their financial future could be affected by different decisions.

New data revealed that roughly a third (32%) of Britons currently don’t save any of their annual income. Despite this, the vast majority (76%) of people say they want to save more each month. But almost a quarter (24%) dismiss saving accounts as ‘pointless’ due to record low interest rates. It is widely believed that this lack of clear and affordable guidance may be largely to blame.

Munnypot, developed using Five Degrees’ next generation digital platform Matrix, is the first UK-based customer for Five Degrees, a Dutch banking and wealth management software provider. During Finovate, Five Degrees will launch a dramatically improved version of Matrix, with new product features to help customers overcome the challenges of innovation, disruption and PSD2 legislation.

Commenting on the munnypot showcase, Martijn Hohmann, CEO of Five Degrees, said: “Robo advisory will be a game changer for financial inclusion: it promises to make both saving and investing easy, accessible and affordable, for new types of customers. This is a significant step in our journey towards becoming the trusted provider of next generation solutions for digital banking and wealth management.”