GIRLS INC. NYC - EQUALFUTURE Partnership

Joyce Phillips is Founder and CEO of EqualFuture Corp., a company dedicated to ensuring we all have a shot at an equal future through transparent accessible affordable financial education and advice.  Phillips brings substantial global experience in banking, financial services, innovation and marketing. Phillips has held executive roles with global and regional responsibilities with Citigroup, American International Group and Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Limited. Phillips also brings experience in serving a wide range of consumer financial needs through innovation and new technologies. Ms. Phillips was recognized in the U.S. Banker “25 Most Powerful Women in Banking and Finance” multiple times and named one of the top 100 Fintech leaders in Asia.  Phillips serves on the boards of Western Union and Girls Inc. NYC.  She is also a distinguished alumni from New York University’s Stern School of Business.  Phillips is passionate about engaging  underserved communities.

Joyce Phillips LinkedIn Profile

Closing the financial literacy gap is at the heart of our solution.

One of the world’s biggest economic and social problems is a lack of financial literacy. In the US, there are 100 million people that need help making good financial choices and the current system is not designed for them. This problem is magnified in communities of women and women of color.

Research shows that educating women and girls is the single most effective strategy to ensure the well-being and health of communities and nations.

EqualFuture is partnering with Girl’s Inc. NYC to develop a new platform designed to help young women build financial capabilities. The program integrates a successful award-winning teacher-led financial literacy curriculum with a new technology platform informed by behavioral research to engage through simple gamified tools that are based on real life events. 

Problem: Financial illiteracy and its social and economic impact on underserved communities.

Women play a pivotal role in the economic advancement of a nation.  Addressing financial illiteracy is an essential factor in achieving women’s equality and alleviating poverty. 77% of the global adult population, roughly 3.5 billion people, lack an understanding of basic financial concepts. Financial illiteracy is magnified in communities of women. Worldwide, only one in three adults understand basic financial concepts. Billions of people are unprepared to deal with rapid changes in the financial landscape including the current impact of the Pandemic.

Research shows that financial education has a significant positive impact on financial literacy and engagement.

Women face unique financial challenges and an effective way forward is to develop a new approach to specifically help women build financial knowledge and make better decisions for their future.

To alleviate social and economic problems exacerbated by financial illiteracy, we have created a new platform designed through a woman’s lens. Our human-centered design is informed by behavioral studies with a specific focus on helping women understand basic financial concepts, get and stay organized, use simple gamified tools and information to improve their future.

EqualFuture is a technology platform that delivers a unique interactive approach to financial education and life decision support.  It helps the user Connect --- with where they are today, Protect ---their future, and Grow ---knowledge and confidence to make better decisions for their future … one decision at a time.

Our program will integrate and digitize the award-winning financial literacy curricula developed by Girls Inc. NYC for public schools and after-school programs via teacher assisted formats with EqualFuture’s unique approach and technology.

Key features include:

- Interactive game-like tools

- highly-curated content designed to inform and not overwhelm

- Unique simple UX design.

- Learn from others feature allowing users to choose “Life-time” simulations of individuals in different life situations

Life Event interactive tools currently developed include: Career Planning, College Planning and Affordability, Create and track a Budget, Manage Debt, Rent or Buy a Home or Car, Retirement Planning. Smart Cash Flow, Secure Vault, Side-hustle, and more. The core platform is built on AWS and utilizes industry leading security and privacy standards.

Our solution will initially help underserved communities of girls through a partnership with Girls Inc of NYC which serves 10,000 girls ages 6 – 22.  Many are from the poorest communities, hardest hit by the pandemic. This pilot will allow us to capture valuable learnings before expanding nationally and then globally through other strategic partnerships.

When the Financial Educators Council recently surveyed students aged 17-25 with the question “What high school level course would benefit your life the most?”, more than 50% responded “money management” as the course they thought would be most beneficial to their personal lives. We passionately believe that we can dramatically change the futures of young people, specifically young women and their families,with a new approach via the EqualFuture platform.

GINYC has a 20-year track record in delivering Financial Literacy. Financial Literacy has a profound effect on girl’s empowerment and women’s equality that translates into independence and higher living standards. We have seen many girls go from poverty to gainful employment after building confidence in financial capabilities. The new approach that we are co-creating will help young women build stronger futures.

We want everyone to have a shot at an equal future through financial empowerment. By redesigning systems and platforms to help women succeed, we are creating opportunities for everyone. 

We want to change the world by educating and empowering women.

Changing the world one women at a time...

This project is the continuation of work spanning two decades, where I have been dedicated to engaging emerging customers, especially those with bespoke needs. Most recently while working in Australia as global Wealth CEO and Marketing and Innovation Chief at ANZ Banking Group, I championed women’s access to wealth and financial services.  

Using my sphere of leadership, I partnered with the award-winning director Jane Campion, to create the ‘Equal Future’ campaign – which is focused on changing systems to achieve greater equality and empower women.

The campaign achieved a global media reach of over 130 million, trended number 1 on Twitter at launch, and was a catalyst for the Australian Government starting an inquiry into the Economic Security for Women in Retirement. 

Returning to the US, I teamed up with world class trusted colleagues to create EqualFuture Corp.  We took a fresh lens to explore how best to engage the largest underserved community, which is women, with financial literacy and empowerment.

As a board member and long-term supporter of Girls Inc. NYC, we wanted to co-create a new model to accelerate progress. Girls Inc. NYC provides an excellent network for distribution of this important initiative.

Equal Future Campaign

My father died when I was young, and I was raised by a strong single working mother. My grandmother was also a successful business owner and a first generation American. Without the ability to learn from such strong female role models and their capability to make good financial decisions, I would not be where I am today.

As a triplet, being raised with a brother and sister moving through life at the exact same age, gender equality was very much a part of my upbringing and sensitized me to see inequality in communities and situations outside of my immediate family.

Having spent my career in financial services, I was always asking …Why must making financial decisions be so hard? For most individuals there is no trusted place for help.  The industry is designed around helping with investment decisions only to collect fees that can total a year of retirement savings over a lifetime, which many do not understand. This and many other decisions have significant impact on our futures.  I am passionate about helping everyone, especially the underserved, have an equal future through financial empowerment. I truly believe that helping women is the way to accelerate economic advancement and equality.

We are a world class diverse team of highly experienced individuals that have worked together around the world and share a passion to redesign systems to help the underserved make good financial decisions for their future.

Team chops:

Leadership

Consumer Focus

Digital Innovation

Marketing

Financial Planning & Advice

Retail Banking

Education

Technology

Global

Understanding consumer insights and creating sustainable innovative ways to serve consumers is a big part of our DNA.

Girls Inc. of New York City, an independent affiliate of the national nonprofit youth organization, Girls Inc., with roots dating to 1864, has provided vital educational programs to millions of American girls, particularly those in high-risk, underserved areas.  Our partnership aims to accelerate an innovative approach to financial empowerment that helps girls embrace their value and potential, better equip them to be leaders in the community, and prepare them to lead successful, independent, and fulfilling lives. 

The Girls Inc, NYC Equal Future partnership, provides an important network for learning and scaling.  We are supported by a powerful and passionate group of donors and board members that are committed to raise awareness and momentum for this important program.

Having risen through the management ranks of Fortune 500 global companies in a male dominated financial industry, I have learned to overcome and adapt to an environment that was not always supportive and welcoming.  An important reason why I wanted to create EqualFuture Corp is to remove bureaucracy, bias and organizational antibodies that reject new ideas.  I wanted my shot at finding a solution to help millions of people with a team and partners that shares my passion and integrity.  

Our two-year journey as a lean start-up has delivered three MVPs and a series of pivots.  The team has remained on tract and committed to our mission.  The setbacks were key learnings for us to adjust our model and technology to be more relevant to the people we wish to help.

Key epiphanies: Help everyone by designing for women.  Our design approach was to use behavioral learnings on how best to help women achieve financial empowerment and use this as a basis for our core platform design.  This approach tested strong among male users as well.  A key challenge is to design an affordable platform for all.  This requires simple, game-like, intuitive design to remove fear and intimidation. 

During my tenure as CEO of a global wealth management in Australia, I championed a program to improve women’s access to wealth and financial literacy. This work was the catalyst for an Australian Senate inquiry into the economic security of women in retirement.

As part of this program, we commissioned a white paper which highlighted structural barriers facing women in Australia and their impacts on career, income gaps, promotion opportunities, and retirement.  The report reached an international audience of 132 million. This campaign became known as the #equalfuture movement.

Leadership and resilience was required across a number of fronts including working with the Board and Government agencies to change policies to increase retirement contributions for female staff.  Our influence went beyond our employees by encouraging other companies to follow our lead with a turnkey policy package that was shared with over 100 companies.  We also provided financial literacy support and free financial advice to staff with less than $50,000 in retirement savings.

Equality can mean many things. To some it means fairness, balance or even justice. To me, it means opportunity.  Financial empowerment is all about opportunity - for women and for the world. 

Simple, comprehensive approach to financial literacy designed for women to help everyone.

1) Girls Inc. NYC (as described above)

2) Large college loan company (financial education and planning)

3) 401k administrator (financial wellness for employees)

4) Large insurance company (financial wellness offering)

SaaS model via platform as a service with open APIs 

Combination of all of the above

Seed funded and raising foundation support with Girls Inc. NYC for this specific program 

Seed funded and raising foundation support with Girls Inc. NYC for this specific program