According to Vinay Jayaram, Envizage’s chief executive and co-founder, the ecosystem targets the vast number of less-confident individuals who don’t know what they need to do to achieve their future goals.
Often, they don’t even realise that they need to do anything at all.
The Envizage ecosystem allows financial services client firms to pool capabilities and design “unique, highly differentiated applications that solve this challenge”.
Members of the partnership include PwC, Capgemini, Advicefront, Oxford Risk, Future Workshops, Play Consulting, Space, Quovo, EValue and Decipher Finance.
“We have all been forced to become investment officers and risk managers for our personal finances – and those of our families,” said Jayaram, a former managing director at Morgan Stanley, explaining the rationale for the ecosystem.
“And yet, most of us don’t know how to perform this role. We lack the skills to manage this age of uncertainty. When it comes to assessing and planning our futures, much of our decision-making is based upon guesswork, which has wide-ranging and negative consequences for us, for our families, and for wider society,” he told International Adviser.
“We’re excited to announce an ecosystem of like-minded partners, each dedicated to solving a part of this challenge. Our network seeks to empower people everywhere, allowing them to make informed decisions about their futures and enabling the financial services industry to serve them better than it does today.”
Different definition of risk
Envizage develops simulation-based advice models that help consumers identify and manage risks to their future plans.
The firm’s approach defines risk in terms of failing to meet desired future outcomes, rather than the typical definition of risk in terms of investment volatility.
“This mirrors the way people actually think and behave, rather than the way that financial services firms would like them to behave,” said Jayaram.
According to Jayaram, members of the ecosystem have already introduced other members to over 100 prospective clients across the UK, Europe, US, Middle East and Asia. Some of these have led to contracts and expansion into new markets.
The partnership can support various routes to advice, whether it is through an IFA, a tied adviser, a human-digital hybrid, or self-directed.
Different members of the partnership have complementary offerings suitable for different sizes of firm and different aspects of advice including tax and portfolio optimisation, end-customer engagement, gamification, account connectivity and behavioural finance.
