Money issues: These 2 S’poreans stop their jobs to “give their 2 cents” on private finance

Ever felt such as you have been stepping onto a minefield with regards to managing your private finance?

Well, you’re not alone. In reality, one in two adults in Singapore really feel the identical manner. 55.2 per cent of adults contemplate themselves as financially illiterate, and that is most outstanding amongst younger adults aged between 18 and 24 years previous.

You’re to not blame although. There are many ache factors with regards to managing funds — there’s an excessive amount of guesswork with regards to planning, and too many variables for the layman with out information in excel to plan forward.

You might at all times flip to a monetary advisor to plan out your private finance and take issues out of your palms, however you’ll by no means know if they’ve your finest intentions at coronary heart.

After all, private finance is private. There’s no one-size-fits-all resolution.

This was why Darren Lee Jian Wei based private finance platform Dare to Finance — to assist Singaporeans to make knowledgeable choices with regards to private finance.

Giving their “2 cents on personal finance”

When Darren was nonetheless learning on the National University of Singapore again in 2019, he landed a job as a monetary marketing consultant.

Darren had at all times felt strongly about managing private funds, however taking on the job made him realise that the monetary advisory panorama in Singapore was subpar, and left loads to be desired.

Particularly unhappy with the sales-driven method of economic advisors, he spearheaded the launch of Dare to Finance in 2020.

Initially beginning out as a platform to share his perspective on private finance on Instagram, Dare to Finance aimed to assist particular person to take cost of their finance and provides its “2 cents on personal finance”, with monetary training as its prime precedence.

This is why they got here up with the tagline: “Just a platform to give our 2 cents on personal finance because the 98 cents is up to you!”

As Dare to Finance rose to reputation on Instagram, Darren was discovering it exhausting to handle the platform alone. After all, he was nonetheless a full-time computing scholar and an element time monetary advisor.

This was when he was joined by his former classmate from Ngee Ann Polytechnic, Sakura Seet, who can be passionate in private finance issues.

She held on to her full-time job as a digital marketeer whereas managing Dare to Finance’s model accounts and a 12 months later, Sakura additionally turned a monetary advisor to assist out with the platform’s advisory demand as properly.

Fast ahead to at the moment, each Sakura and Darren have left their full-time jobs to completely deal with Dare to Finance’s development.

Focusing on content material, monetary advisory and fintech

The private finance platform now contains three pillars: content material, monetary advisory and fintech.

Primarily, it produces finance and life-style content material on Instagram and Medium. Both Sakura and Darren often delegate a day or two to work together with followers on these platforms and reply their private finance queries.

“We don’t earn anything from this, but it’s just a small action on our part that we feel will go a long way,” mentioned Sakura.

Meanwhile, Dare to Finance’s monetary advisory pillar, veers away from the standard gross sales and product-centric method and is structured to tackle an educational-first method.

We need our advisory division to encompass advisors that help past simply merchandise. All of our advisors undergo necessary finance coaching and are outfitted with present monetary information and information.

– Sakura Seet, co-founder of Dare to Finance

Users can go to their web site to schedule a free appointment with a monetary advisor at their comfort.

Once you could have an thought of what you want — whether or not it’s funding, insurance coverage, or retirement planning — the advisor crew will evaluate any related paperwork you could have and offer you an outline of your present commitments and any phrases and situations which will have been missed by earlier advisors.

The crew will even reply any questions you could have about your present plans and, if mandatory, advocate appropriate insurance coverage merchandise to fill any gaps in your plan.

Sakura emphasised that Dare to Finance has mandated that there could be no gross sales in the course of the monetary session. “This is to prevent any impulse purchases from the client’s side, and to give them ample time to think about the team’s recommendation.”

Currently, Dare to Finance is prioritising the expansion of its fintech pillar, which goals to utilise expertise so as to make monetary planning enjoyable and hassle-free.

When the corporate first began out, Darren helped his pool of shoppers create a personalised 32-page monetary “guidebook”, meant to offer readability and assist its them set their monetary priorities on the best course.

Although the guidebook obtained optimistic opinions, it was extraordinarily time-consuming and never scalable. To tackle this, Darren determined to make use of his coding abilities to automate the method. “And that’s how our tech arm started,” mentioned Sakura. 

Subsequently, Darren devoted most of his time in direction of growing their very own software program, referred to as the Financial Pathway. Sakura described it as a “calculator that puts together different aspects of one’s finances and projects it into the future.”

They ultimately examined out the personalised monetary planning software with over 200 of its followers, which obtained optimistic suggestions and have become a mainstay of the platform. They are at present constructing the ready-to-launch model of the Financial Pathway, which is predicted to roll out by April 2023.

Over 10,000 followers in two years

Starting off as a mere Instagram web page, the corporate has made it fairly far — it has amassed over 10,200 followers on Instagram and has over 1,000 subscribers on Telegram.

In 2022, Dare to Finance determined to scale it right into a fintech firm, which led it to be incubated beneath Singapore Management University (SMU)’s Institute of Innovation and Entrepreneurship.

Their involvement within the SMU Incubator Program has led to the advance of their providers and streamlining of choices. The firm obtained common suggestions from traders by means of this system, which helped them to refine their choices.

Partnering with the likes of CPF, StashAway, Syfe, and moomoo to work on branded content material on its platform, the corporate has efficiently achieved profitability for its content material arm. The income from that is used to finance its fintech improvement.

However, not every thing is as rosy because it appears. A key problem the enterprise is dealing with at the moment is to maintain up Singaporeans’ curiosity in managing funds.

“We all know the importance of good financial habits, but unfortunately, not everyone cares as much as they should,” commented Sakura.

Many people in Singapore are nonetheless spending greater than they’ll afford to maintenance a way of life they’ll’t keep — and it’s these people who want extra assist with their funds.

Although COVID-19 and inflation has propelled the curiosity of Singaporeans in private finance, many have but to take the initiative to kind their funds. “If you look at the OCBC financial wellness index, you’ll still see that we’re still far from ideal.”

To sort out this downside, Dare to Finance plans to embed life-style and gamification into its instruments, and leverage its monetary advisors to achieve out to those people.

Growing the enterprise with extra funds, AI integration

In Singapore, apart from funds, tech within the private finance house has not seen a lot development.

The overwhelming majority of tech on this house are principally revolved round expense monitoring, which assist customers preserve to a finances that they’ve set out for themselves.

While these apps could also be helpful, Sakura defined that arising with a finances tailor-made to your quick time period and long run objectives is just not straightforward. “Many resort to an excel sheet in the end to manage their finances which is not necessarily friendly to everyone.”

Hence, Dare to Finance goals to revolutionise the private finance house and construct an ecosystem that permits Singaporeans to work in direction of and obtain their monetary objectives. In order to do that, the corporate plans to include synthetic intelligence (AI) into its choices to offer customers insights and information them by means of their personalised monetary journey.

To additional bolster their progress within the private finance business, it additionally plans to begin in search of funding from enterprise capitals and construct a recognisable native model synonymous with Singapore.

Featured Image Credit: Dare to Finance