Local investment manager, Spring IM, is launching the Channel Islands' first digital investment platform making investment opportunities accessible for all islanders.
Founders, Simon O‘Donoghue and Alfie Greenway established Spring IM to address a significant gap in the Channel Islands' financial services market.
The duo, who have more than 45 years' experience in the sector, recognised that there are many islanders who would like the opportunity to invest their money but wouldn't qualify in terms of their ‘wealth' with existing on-island wealth management firms.
"We believe investment opportunities should be available for everyone. For too long investment management has been an exclusive service, not accessible for the vast majority of islanders. Through the use of a cutting edge FinTech solution, we can deliver a cost-effective service that doesn't require customers to invest large amounts just to get on board.
With interest rates on savings accounts remaining incredibly low, our solution also provides a viable alternative to a traditional bank savings account or pension, with the option to invest anything from £100 per month,' said Simon O'Donoghue, Chief Executive Officer, Spring IM and current Executive Chair of the Channel Islands Wealth Management Association."
"I am delighted that we have achieved our vision of making the process of investing as simple and time efficient as possible, as we appreciate life can be busy.
"We offer a fully digital experience from onboarding, which takes approximately ten minutes, through to easy to understand transparent fees, and clear, real time, daily reporting via our purpose built client platform.
"We wanted to make sure customers wouldn't find their first steps into investing daunting or intimidating," added Alfie Greenway, Chief Financial Officer, Spring IM.
He added: "We believe investing doesn't have to be complicated. Through our digital process, we ask customers a few questions to find out what type of investor they are and match them with a strategy that specifically meets their goals, whether that's to preserve their money or take greater risks to grow their nest egg.
"And while our solution is fully digital, we have a team of talented investment professionals based in our St Helier office should islanders want to speak to an advisor at any time," concluded Alfie.
The Spring IM client platform offers all of the convenience of online banking, giving islanders access to their money at any time, while also enabling users to look in detail at how their portfolio is performing and to see any other linked investment accounts they may also hold with Spring IM. The client platform also enables parents to set up accounts that can be designated to their children, helping them to develop their financial literacy.
"While there are digital investment solutions available in the UK, which islanders are unable to access, there hasn't been a platform regulated by the JFSC which will allow islanders to invest until now,' added Carmen Tyler, Head of Investment Solutions, Spring IM.
"With assets such as Crypto currencies and NFTs (non-fungible tokens) becoming increasingly of interest to many people, we offer a platform that enables islanders to become investors in global markets and importantly in less volatile assets, resulting in better diversification benefits, improved risk management and increased efficiency of decision making."
Spring IM has digitised the process making what it describes as this cutting edge and cost-effective, data-driven investment solution accessible for everyone enabling islanders to set up accounts from the comfort of home via a laptop, tablet or mobile.
