Insights: Can banks turn high earners into wealthy customers?

SPEAKER_1 (0:01)

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Ross Gallagher (0:40)

Welcome to Fintech Insider Insights. I'm Ross Gallagher, Head of Consulting here at 11FS. Today, we're tackling an interesting question. What happens when your salary starts to grow faster than the financial support around you? Now, there's a group of customers often described as Henrys. That's high earners, not rich yet. They're earning significant incomes and starting to make more complex decisions about saving, investing, borrowing and of course planning for the future. But they haven't necessarily yet accumulated the wealth traditionally associated with private banking or financial advice. That leaves them in an interesting gap. Their financial lives may have outgrown everyday banking, but the support available to them hasn't always evolved at the same pace. And that's particularly interesting because financial institutions potentially know more about these customers than ever before. They can see salaries coming in, spending changing, savings growing and new financial needs emerging. Yet many customers still end up piecing together their financial lives across different banks, investment platforms and providers. Now that gap is attracting more attention. Digital challenges are moving up markets. Incumbent banks are investing in wealth and financial planning. And AI can make more personalized financial guidance possible at a much, much, racer scale. So today we're asking why has financial services struggled to support people on the journey from earning well to building wealth?

And who has the best opportunity to change that?

Now to discuss that, I am joined by my wonderful colleague, co-host Kate Moody, Customer Strategy Director at 11FS.

Kate, I don't imagine that anybody who regularly listens to the show doesn't know who you are, but for just following process, maybe you can just introduce yourself and a little bit about your role at 11FS.

Kate Moody (2:32)

Yeah, absolutely. Thanks, Ross. It's nice to be on this side of the hosting for a while. I don't have to worry about staying to time. I can just waffle on as much as I like. But yeah, when I'm not on Fintech Insider, I work in the consulting part of our business at 11FS.

I'm self-described as a customer nerd. What that typically means is really trying to understand through various types of research. Ultimately, what are the key customer jobs to be done that exist in a given problem space? What is it that's been well-served? Where are the gaps? Where are the opportunities? So yeah, really helping to work with the organizations we partner with to understand their customers better and design propositions, which hopefully serve them better as well.

Ross Gallagher (3:07)

Excellent, Kate. I know you've been looking at this particular customer segment more recently as well, so keen to get into this one with you.

As ever, it's a very warm welcome back to the show from Matt Ford, the co-founder and CEO of Sidekick. Matt, as I said, always a great pleasure to see you. Maybe again, you can just remind our listeners a little bit about yourself and what you're up to at Sidekick.

Matt Ford (3:29)

Yeah, of course. Great to be back. It's always fun to be on the show.

So yeah, I set up Sidekick five years ago. We are a digital wealth manager servicing exactly the segment that we're talking about today, which is the Henrys. So we were built because we felt that there was a big gap between the private banks at the top end and the entry level retail investment platforms at the bottom. And I'm sure we'll get into all the details of why we thought there was a big huge space and that's what Sidekick is filling. So yeah, excited to talk through it in more detail.

Ross Gallagher (4:00)

Brilliant. Yeah. And thanks Matt, as ever, for coming on and sharing your very valuable perspectives on this topic as well.

And last but not least, we have Tamara van den Ban. The MD of Premier Banking at NatWest Group. Tamara, really great to see you. Welcome back to the show. Again, maybe you wouldn't mind just reintroducing yourself to our listeners.

Matt Ford (4:21)

Yes.

Tamara van den Ban (4:22)

No, of course. And thank you for having me on such an exciting topic. So I'm indeed the MD for Premier Banking at NetWest, which is our premier segment, which Henry's is the starting point of and a big part of up until people have a million with us, which is a super interesting large segment, which as people from across different life stages, different goals in life, different needs in life, probably all face some level of complexity and they need help with it. Even if they might not have the right amount of money yet, that normally gives you access to advice or service.