Matchmakers usually deal in matters of the heart, but here WealthBriefing explores a new service helping UK clients to find the perfect partner to handle their wealth.

Matchmakers usually deal in matters of the heart, but here WealthBriefing explores a new service helping UK clients to find the perfect partner to handle their wealth.

The UK wealth management industry is a highly disjointed one, teeming with all manner of firms vying for clients’ attention, and it can undoubtedly be a confusing market, especially for those entering it for the first time. In response, six months ago two seasoned bankers launched a new online matching service - Findawealthmanager.com - which promises to make things easier for clients, while also helping wealth managers to grow their client books in exactly the segments they want. Here, WealthBriefing speaks to the firm’s founders to find out how business is going – and uncovers some interesting client trends.

Findawealthmanager.com is the brainchild of Lee Goggin and Dominic Gamble, both former private bankers who three years ago decided that they were going to do something to help UK clients through the wealth management maze and find the firm that’s right for them. The eventual launch of Findawealthmanager.com actually plays to several key themes in the UK wealth management market: a disjointed landscape with firms operating under wildly different models and cultures; the confusion of HNW individuals over which type of firm will best suit their needs; and the need for wealth managers themselves to precisely target certain types of client. There is also, of course, the cultural shift towards consumers routinely comparing service providers, which has been fuelled by the proliferation of online comparison services for everything from mobile phone tariffs to flights.

But Findawealthmanager.com is not a price (or in this case fee) comparison site, but rather, in the words of Goggin, a “consumer-focused matching system that impartially matches wealth managers with potential clients”. In short, Findawealthmanager.com aims to match clients with the right firm for them on the basis of factors like their asset base, their risk-profile and investment goals. Whereas other introductory services in the UK are more industry focused, Findawealthmanager.com is consumer focused – “something that the market is crying out for”, according to Goggin.

So how does the service work, for both potential clients and wealth managers themselves? In brief, those looking for a wealth manager are asked to fill in a 20-question multiple-choice questionnaire online to build up a full picture of their needs, then, on the basis of this profile, Findawealthmanager.com lines up three firms which are then able to pitch their services to the client.

While it would be easy to imagine Goggin and Gamble painstakingly sifting through questionnaires, the matching process is actually carried out via a proprietary algorithm. While this is obviously more efficient, the use of an algorithm is actually a vital part of the service offering, said Goggin, as it really does mean that the matching process is impartial and transparent. “The algorithm can’t be changed for a referral...there is no subjectivity there at all,” he said, adding that the service is in no way advisory, it generates matches solely on the objective metrics supplied by the prospective client and wealth manager.

Data privacy, due diligence

The depth of data which Findawealthmanager.com gleans from prospective clients is of course like gold-dust to wealth managers, but Goggin and Gamble are keen to emphasise the integrity of the service in protecting client data: they never sell client data, and only the three firms matched to each client ever get to see it. Wealth management firms themselves will also be glad to know that Findawealthmanager.com performs due diligence on the services’ users before passing their details on, verifying their identity and eliminating time-wasters (the service asks that users have a minimum of $150,000 to invest). “No one sees their results until we know they are serious,” said Gamble. It is of course in the service’s interests to solely put forward serious prospects since it gets paid an introducer’s fee only once a relationship is established between client and wealth manager (the service is free for consumers).

As well as providing solid prospects for wealth managers to pitch to, Findawealthmanager.com is also intended to be a strategic aid to firms, said Goggin, “because the match is two-way”, and so wealth managers can effectively hand pick clients in the segments and regions they are currently targeting. They can also make sure that they put exactly the right relationship manager in front of the prospect – something which is particularly important when dealing with segments with very specific needs, such as sports and media clients.

Client dissatisfaction

Findawealthmanager.com currently has 32 institutions on its books, which range from boutiques up to the wealth management divisions of global banking groups, and according to Goggin and Gamble the service has achieved a high level of success in “matchmaking” clients and institutions: of the matches it has made, in around 90 per cent of cases the two parties are still in talks. But aside from helping clients to find the right institution for them, Findawealthmanager.com is actually also generating some very interesting data indeed on why UK clients are looking at other firms.

Of the service’s users 50 per cent currently do not use the services of a wealth management firm – a powerful indicator of just how much untapped wealth is out there in the UK. Meanwhile, 20 per cent of users are looking to diversify and spread their money around more firms (unsurprisingly given the lingering doubts about institutions’ financial stability which many clients still have following the crisis). The remaining 30 per cent of users are actively looking for an alternative as they are unhappy with their current provider.

So what are these clients unhappy about? Chiming with various reports asserting the same, Gamble notes that “service is something complained about much more than investment performance”. In today’s still uncertain economic environment, it would seem that clients are far more willing to tolerate lacklustre investment performance than they are shoddy service. A failure to promptly get back to clients if they have rung in “can be quite infuriating”, agreed Goggin. (A failure to return calls quickly is actually the top reason that HNW clients sack their wealth manager, according to a 2011 SEI study).

Goggin and Gamble believe that now is a particularly opportune time to be a wealth management matchmaker since not only are great swathes of clients dissatisfied with their current firm, but also because wealth managers themselves are finding it hard to prospect for new business due to time constraints. Here, they cite PwC data which puts the amount of time which relationship managers have to market to new clients at under 20 per cent of their working week. Moreover, the increasing regulatory burden in the UK is likely to eat even further into this already slim allocation, meaning that a tool which makes prospecting and pitching to new clients easier is likely to prove popular.

Findawealthmanager.com may only have a small proportion of the UK’s plethora of firms on its books at present, but its founders maintain that the variety of houses currently linked to the service still represents a “really wide spread of investment managers”. Obviously Goggin and Gamble will look to increase the number of firms Findawealthmanager.com has links to as the business builds momentum, but they are by no means looking to represent every provider in the UK. “Going whole of market just isn’t realistic,” said Goggin, while Gamble points out that not even the biggest generalist comparison sites represent every provider in their space.

Findawealthmanager.com is of course in the business of making money through introducer’s fees, but Goggin and Gamble say they are committed to maintaining the integrity of the service and as such the site will not feature advertising for particular wealth managers, nor does its own marketing collateral mention any particular firms. They do also seem to be genuinely enthused by the idea of helping the affluent chose the right wealth manager for their needs. “It’s a very confusing time…people don’t know where to put their money,” said Gamble. “We hope to inspire people to get their finances in order.”