There are very few wealth management apps that were truly created to help people build wealth with confidence, no matter their starting point or level of financial education. All too often the apps say they’re catered to those interested in becoming wealthier, but the knowledge gap and the price to become part of the investment community is just too high.
So, what does build wealth with confidence, throughout life look like? Can investing your spare change be successful, helping you turn your money into something greater?
To find out, we spoke with Jay Swanston, Chief Platform Officer at Moneybox, an investment app dedicated to teaching people how to manage their money, invest smartly and grow their wealth to achieve their financial goals in life – whether buying their first home or saving for a retirement they can look forward to.
Join us as we discuss:
- Lessons learned from crowdfunding and working with investors to build Moneybox
- How the Fintech app plans to continuously improve its user experience
- The challenges of launching a new product and the future of Wealthtech
Investing in investing
Moneybox is a digital wealth manager with products and services across saving, investing, home-buying and retirement, helping people manage and achieve their short, mid and long term goals all within one simple app.
So, in order to raise the capital they needed, Moneybox turned to crowdfunding.
Why?
As Jay tells it, that’s because they were confident in their product and wanted to not only fund it but to build a community centered around smart investing before they even launched.
And it’s a win-win — those investing in the company ultimately end up helping the company grow by adding to Moneybox’s user base, while they, as shareholders, also reap the benefits of the app’s success.
“If you’re asking customers to put faith in you as a company,” Jay says, “that’s a two-way street — and if the company grows, customers should be able to enjoy the benefits of that.”
Of course, not every investor becomes a user, and not every user becomes an investor, but Jay still contends that Moneybox’s crowdfunding approach has deepened the relationship between the company and the investment community.
And Moneybox is doubling down on improving the user experience to deepen that relationship further still.
Investing in the user experience
Moneybox falls into the Wealthtech category and is primarily focused on helping consumers with sensible, long-term investment strategies, rather than being geared towards day-trading or other short-term investment plays.
The app helps customers manage their funds, makes it easy to get started investing and, perhaps most importantly, encourages healthy financial behaviors like dollar-cost averaging to help customers see investment success over the long-term.
As Jay tells it, the app’s dual purpose of promoting financial wellness and literacy is working. The company’s data shows that users are increasingly availing themselves of the financial advice that helps them manage and reduce the risk posed by volatility in today’s shifting markets.
For Jay, the financial success of Moneybox is only one measure of the company’s overall success — the financial success of its customers is just as important. And by that metric, Moneybox is doing well.
Jay touts the 30,000 customers the app has helped buy their first home as just one example of user success.
“It’s genuinely uplifting,” he says, “to know that there are customers out there whose lives are being improved by their ability to use the Moneybox services to achieve successful financial outcomes.”
Investing in the future
Since Moneybox is all about encouraging long-term investing and saving strategies, it’s no surprise that Jay keeps a keen eye on the future of Fintech and Wealthtech.
While, in the short term, Jay says market volatility will deter some startups in the space — and likely encourage more mergers and acquisitions — he sees the long-term forecast for the space as an overall positive one.
He points to Fintech’s embracing of change as a sign that the relatively new sector is well-built to withstand the financial crises over the horizon. While traditional financial institutions may have feared sudden market upheavals, Fintech is agile and nimble, always ready to change for the better — this means the sector can look at external change as an opportunity, rather than a death sentence.
Markets will always change — that’s what they do. But in the long run, they tend to trend upwards. And in the same way that Moneybox is helping its users plan for long-term success, innovations like open banking, Wealthtech, and the population’s increasing financial literacy are helping to ensure the future is bright for finance, even if the short term is uncertain.
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Until next time!
