PaceUP Invest

The financial industry was not built with women in mind creating the problem of women not having required financial literacy skills to invest. The solution is to provide digital financial learning tools and financial products to better serve women according to their needs. It will reduce the global gender wealth gap, and global gender financial literacy gap.

PaceUP  Invest Manifesto is to walk together hand in hand regardless of gender on the journey of closing the gender gap in benefit of all mankind through helping women to gain financial independence, and enhance their contribution to society. We are architects to bring the best of each other to leverage our differences and complementarities.

Digital inclusion via financial learning to become financially independent is an essential skill for women to obtain. One key reason is that women live longer. Some 90% of women will be solely responsible for their finances at some point in their life. To that point, 75% of women in a male-female relationship will be widowed by an average age of 56.

PaceUP Invest aims to empower more women to build financial literacy and invest for their future. There is a substantial gender gap in financial knowledge with 30% of the global female adults are financially literate while for men it is 35%, according to the GFLEC reports and   surveys.  Thus, financial education programs are necessary, and programs targeted to women will provide a way to close the knowledge gap. PaceUP Invest aims to provide digital personalised learning tools to improve this and encourage economic participation of women and ultimately become financially independent via saving and investing. Women are half of immunity- this is a global problem and our solution addresses the problems on a global scale.  We see financial knowledge and management as tools necessary for financial independence.

PaceUP Invest provides holistic tools of personalised hybrid of online and offline learning. With our library of great courses of contents and collaborations with expertise, the learners with the expertise and the support they need to achieve their financial goals  and independence. They can then ultimately start to save and invest.

Through online courses, webinars, videos, podcasts, e-library and a customised app, our women students will be able to access the necessary online resources at their convenience to build their knowledge. They will have their own personalised progress reports that will keep them updated on their learning transformation and keep them on track. We incorporate behavioural economics and finance into this process.

Depending on individual’s pace of learning, they can then move to start saving and investing from as little money as possible.

We are have tested this concept of learning and investing on the same platform via an accelerator programme at Walldorf, Germany and also as one of the few entrepreneurial projects during the ESSEC and Mannheim 2020 Executive MBA programme. 

The mission, vision, and passion of PaceUP Invest stems from a personal story. I would like to tell this before I go into other details.

I visited my grandma in the township when I was growing up. She was a gold trader and would often buy gold from Ghana and sell it in Nigeria. On Fridays, I would follow her to the bank to deposit some Gold; and in the evening she would gather around other women under the cashew tree and talk about their week. They would then donate some money and give money to a handful of women who needed it most for their specific goals. These women would then pay back at some point with some interest.

She taught me the basics of empowering women via money to build wealth in addition to the power of communities, as I watched her do this seamlessly when I was growing up in Nigeria.

Real wealth to her was about freedom. I would, later on, follow my passion to work in investment banking and learn about investing.

When i began working in the heavily male-dominated financial sector in London, i quickly realised that women are still left behind when it comes to financial literacy, confidence and investment. I began to speak with many women and it became apparent that most women are left behind when it comes to investing and has to do with gaps in financial literacy in women as well as low confidence when it came to investing for their future. They were also keen on having a platform without stereotypes to invest confidently. They wanted to build their wealth.  As a woman, I had myself experienced feeling left out of the financial conversation and decided to be part of the change.

As I journeyed through life, I realised people and myself needed financial help as I saw the stress on people and what it brought to their lives. I made it a mission and a purpose in life to help as many as possible, especially women. At PaceUP Invest, we ask the questions: what do you want to do? What do you want to accomplish?  Why do you want these?

Women need to be financially independent because the family depends on them, children reach out to them for help.

TARGET POPULATION

Our target population is women from ages 18-54 years of age who are currently both low and mid income earners. They are currently underserved by the financial industry and also the current educational system in providing the basic tenants of financial literacy. Only 30% of female adults are financially literate. They are currently underserved because of their low income. Across the EU, women earn 16% less than men per hour, according to research by the European Commission. As long as the gender wage gap remains a problem, women will constantly need to find additional sources of income or financial security. Learning how to invest and putting aside a small percentage of their monthly income will make a significant difference in the long run. They also have low financial skills which has been backed by several studies.  

Financial education has significant positive impact on financial literacy and financial needs. Studies have shown that women should be targeted separately from men according to needs and offer programs that recognises the differences between men and women in terms of financial knowledge,  financial behaviour, and financial needs. Women, the poor, and lower educated respondents are more likely to suffer from gaps in financial knowledge. This is true not only in developing economies but also in countries with well-developed financial markets.

Financial literacy increases with education in women more so than men. However, women become slightly less confident with rising educational level. This is why we incorporate behavioural economics to our solution.  

We understand the customers' needs via different female communities and organisations we partnered with. We engage on zoom via webinars and workshops with feedback mechanisms to better understand what they need and how we can continue to serve them. They continuously provide valuable insights on how to help them with their financial planning- budgeting, saving to investing. Via collective needs, we are able to answer their needs on an individual personalised basis, with the solutions adapted accordingly. 

We currently report activities via number of workshops and courses in groups of maximum 25 at a time. Our solution has delivered over 50 workshops to over 1250 women. We will continue to deliver more workshops and courses. We have planned 60 more workshops till year end that will have over 2000 women experiencing the outcome. Women feel comfortable being in groups for these workshops. These workshops serve as community where the women come together to build trust and share similar experiences. Trust is at the forefront for our customers. After the workshops and learning, those with individual needs contact us to help them with their financial goals that is personalised to them.  During the accelerator programme and Executive MBA entrepreneurial project to test this concept in 2019 and 2020 respectively, women would like to have one place of contact where they can learn and then ultimately invest. This is what PaceUP Invest is providing and what differentiates us.

Specific outcomes are:  
-Knowledge: increasing financial knowledge in terms basic and advanced literacy. Be able to correctly answer 4 out of 5 questions of the basic financial literacy as designed by Lusardi et al. We collect these data during self and tutor directed workshops and at webinars.

-Skills: from their knowledge they will be able to apply their knowledge and develop skills in financial planning- budgeting, saving to investing. We collect these data via follow ups post training on these aspects and their actions one to 3 months later. 

The indicators to measure the outcome will be reduction in high interest debt, and increase in savings. Measuring these via their personalised dashboards will enable us to know how their financial wellness has improved through learning and acting.

Impact Management

-What changes are (are likely to be) experienced?

For the impact, the women will be more confident in their financial literacy and about their future. They will begin to invest more. Studies have shown that women are ultimately better investors once they feel they are more knowledgeable. We will move the women form learning to action- investing. For example Every day, we see new retirement statistics that are frightening. Data from the OECD shows that retired women in Germany get over 40% less in pension payments than men. Even though the gender wage gap in Europe’s largest economy is below 20%, the gap escalates drastically over time.

By improving financial literacy and learning how to invest, women can grow substantial nest eggs even on less income. Again, this is due to the power of compound interest.

Another is the building of an emergency buffer , from 3 months of yearly salary, will make women have access to money to cover unforeseen circumstances.

-How can we measure these changes?

These changes are measured via their personalised dashboards that will enable us to see their progress in learning and investing. We will also incorporate behavioural finance digitally and via qualitative surveys to see how their behaviour towards investing has changed. The women will be able to monitor their dashboards and feel more confident in taking control of their knowledge and finances. We will monitor the positive causal influence on wealth building. 

-How much of each change is caused by our activity?

Currently, 65% is caused by our activity. We successfully moved those who did not have interest in knowledge and investing to investing and becoming aware of their financial independence after attending some of our workshops.

-What changes matter and are important enough for us to manage?

Long term changes of mindset of women to learn about basic financial literacy which will enable them to better manage their money and narrow the current gender gaps in wage, pension, and wealth gap between men and women. Women are patient, and plan for the long term. These factors combined help them yield better returns on average than men. Including more women in financial knowledge and also investing will ultimately help to reduce the gaps we currently have. These are long term impacts that are very important for humanity at large. 

Education on financial literacy with improved financial capability will lead to increased rate on returns and reduce gender gaps. We have aligned the SDG goals and targets as below: 

1.   No poverty

       1.1   Reduce poverty of women to zero now and at retirement

5.     Gender Equality

       5.1 Through increasing financial knowledge, financial behaviours, and             financial capabilities, we are making women's lives better to close     gender gaps

10. Reduced inequality

       10.1 Reduce income inequalities both now and at retirement

The solution will impact their lives in many ways. It will help them to become financially independent via ensuring  financial inclusion such as opening bank accounts, credits, and savings; inclusion via investing and moving mindset from savings to investing. They will be better prepared and have good financial wellness which is essential to financial security and prevent poverty at old age. An example of an impact case study is below:

CASE STUDY

One of our customers approached us, after attending our course on basic concepts of financial literacy, for financial planning help and mentioned that she had absolutely no savings. She was 35 and was living with her fiancé. After the financial analysis stage, we reconvened to discuss the further steps, we just presented our results to our customer and our customer immediately realised where she was going wrong. Within the first two weeks of her pay she would spend 65% of her salary on shopping and the remaining would go for rent, and utilities. Finally, she would use her credit card to buy groceries. This not only resulted in failure to save but the bills kept piling up, there was not a single month she went by without a credit card bill. At this time, we advised her to maintain another account and asked her to put the money required for necessities there, finally we drew up an investment and a saving plan, whatever she was left with we advised her she could use for her shopping. After 4 months she approached us to convey her results. She mentioned that there was nothing she was lacking, she met all her needs, and saved up as well . And had not used her credit card for 3 months now. She came to us more positive and confident wherein earlier she was more insecure and tensed. She has not only eliminated her debt but has also developed a habit to increase her savings gradually every month. The result of these changes was just by developing a better financial behaviour after attending the one of our digital courses with behavioural finance incorporated.

The solution addresses their needs via digital training where we have identified the important considerations for digital Financial Literacy and Inclusion lesson plans which are below:

·       Backwards Planning. Ensure that the digital workshops support the women to progress toward pre-defined outcomes.

·       Active Learning Techniques. Include visual, social, self-regulated, and project-based learning.

·       Audience Adaptation. PaceUP Invest will adjust activities to support the women learners at different levels

·       Motivation & Reasons. PaceUP Invest will help the women determining their personal reasons and motivations for adopting positive financial behaviours. Help learners determine their personal reasons and motivations for adopting positive financial behaviours.

·       Ongoing Education. PaceUP Invest will include long-term follow-up and support to encourage permanent change is needed.

·       Application. Include activities so students act on what they learned and practice completing real-world tasks such as saving and investing. 

Women are more out of the digital economy hence PaceUP Invest is addressing women first. We are explaining the tools to learn to invest so that they can invest concretely to be more included in the digital world. Our global problem, solution and our target population are aligned with the goals of the Fellowship.  Our solution addresses the digital financial education and investments inclusion of women, to ensure financial independence. The target population are women between ages 18-54 who are not investing due to lack of basic financial literacy. 

We participated in an accelerator programme in Walldorf, Germany in 2019 to provide proof of concept. PaceUPInvest was also one of the few entrepreneurial projects during the ESSEC and Mannheim Executive MBA 2020.

We have deployed a tested product and service in the following communities:

LeanIn Frankfurt- more than 600 women

PaceUP Invest community- more than 1000 women in total 

Global webinars and workshops - more than 3000 attendance in total.

New users will be acquired via B2B partnerships with corporates in providing financial wellness packages. We will also partner with foundations to provide services to their end clients. 

Our retention strategy to ensure the company is sustainable is to continue to be agile in our way of working and provide services that are personalised to each individual. Trust is very important and this is part of our strategy to ensure our customers trust us and they become our evangelists. 

PaceUP is innovative in its holistic approach of financial education and investing incorporating behavioural economics.  None of our current competitors follow this approach. They currently include information and definitions of financial terms on their platform, However this is not provided with the aim of increasing financial literacy overall, irrespective of the product that they sell. Examples of such competitors are robo advisors, financial blogs, and wealth managers.

Behaviour economics proposes the concept of choice architecture, by designing environments and changing the way options are presented, to suggest choices in wise directions, the so called “nudging”.

Another innovative strategy is to inform clients about typical biases and teach them mental strategies to avoid the possible negative effects. This is what differentiates us and makes our solution innovative. After attending webinars on money beliefs and financial wellbeing, we successfully converted 65% of the attendance who had no interested whatsoever in investing

There is flexibility in the courses with its hybrid approach of both digital and human world. Learners will have access to coaches when needed and there will be digital simulation of, for example, how retirement age looks like so that it encourages behavioural changes to moving from learning to acting towards financial independence. This solution definitely changes the market by enabling the women to build more wealth and this has inspired many communities and corporates to look into incorporating financial literacy programmes

Our social impact approach not only is this financial inclusion but also social inclusion for generations.

We currently serve more than 100 learners every month on our platform consuming educational content and attending our workshops and webinars. We launched Feb 2021. By the end of the year, we plan to have more than 2000 learners and by year 5 we plan to have around 33,000 learners conservatively.

Next year: outcome indicator. Quality Financial knowledge: Provide digital skills towards improving financial literacy and investing. We are measuring this via feedback mechanism form and assessments of our learners and investing clients regarding their ability to find financial information and use information to make financial decisions such as borrowing money, different savings accounts, loans etc. Currently the we have 75% of our beneficiaries that have changed their financial behaviour

Currently we measure our impact on the number of women that take on the financial learning programmes and changed their behaviours positively. These are women that both were willing to make a change at initiation and those that had no interest but were impacted as a result of our programme 

5 years: Gender equality. One of our pillars is empowerment- making women's lives better to close gender financial literacy gap. This will also impact the children and will help in teaching personal finances to young adults. We believe more than 70% of the women would have moved to investing and attained some sort of financial independence as a result of our intervention.

1.   No poverty

1.1       Reduce poverty of women to zero now and at retirement

5. Gender Equality

5.1 Through increasing financial knowledge, financial behaviours, and financial capabilities, we are making women's lives better to close gender gaps

10. Reduced inequality

10.1 Reduce income inequalities both now and at retirement

1 Full time

2 contract workers

1 collaborative partner

4 Advisory board members

Our team is well- positioned for this due to our several years of experience in both financial industry and marketing industry. One of our members is a chartered financial analyst and MBA graduate. She has been a financial learning coach and financial advisor/wealth manager for over 12 years. We have industry knowledge and business knowledge spanning over 15 years. Our content marketing strategy expert has over 10 years of experience

The software consultant expert has over 15 years of experience.

We have the required license to provide financial learning coaching, and financial advisory.

We have 4 advisory board members- legal, strategy, business development, and product development.

As a team, we cover most important expect for the company to run.

Diversity: Diversity is one of our pillars. We give same access to women no matter where they came from or their backgrounds. Diversity is also at the forefront our our team- we are all from different backgrounds to bring in more creative ideas and diversity of thoughts to develop better solutions. 

Equity: PaceUP Invest strives for equity and not just equality. We provide great  and genuine opportunities for people of all backgrounds to thrive and succeed. Our practices reflect this. 

Inclusion: We thrive on inclusivity. As a female founder with fiduciary responsibilities, I have experienced what it felt like to be left behind when it comes to financial industry primarily investing. We developed our solutions not only for the abled bodies but those who are hard of hearing and sight. Our solution is designed to include everyone, especially the underserved populations. 

Solve will provide the resources and connections we need. For example, access to great ecosystem of investors and potential partnerships which are needed to further develop and scale our technology and solutions widely to develop financial literacy to financial independence.

If chosen, we plan to use the $10,000 to integrate current LMS to our tech stack while we fundraise to build a more customisable LMS tech stack. We will also use the opportunity to connect with others with similar vision and mission for possible partnerships.

·      Financial- Access to active investors that will also help to move the business forward through their know how and connections

·      Public relations: to improve our public image and be globally recognisable. We are thinking globally but acting locally

·      Technology- Software development, data analytics expertise or partnerships

·      Product distribution-  expanding our client base to other countries, and publics.

·      Foundations: to reach a grater number of women in the low income bracket to increase digital financial inclusion. 

·      MIT faculty to have access to adventurous and cutting edge technology that will enable scalability and flexibility of the solution provided

·      Solve members to be part of the ecosystem and harness partnerships/ potential collaborations.

·      Financial institutions

. Corporates- to provide financial wellness benefit packages and white label solutions to reach greater number of women  

PaceUP Invest solution is to provide digital financial inclusion. Via learning, AI will make learning more accessible to those who might have otherwise struggled to learn in person. AI will also provide a global learning reach to these people through programmes that use language processing algorithms to provide more dynamic descriptions both usually and auditory in order to include every one irrespective of their backgrounds.

Voice enabled assistants, combined with evolution in artificial intelligence AI clearly have the potential to accelerate the shift toward digital and voice-enabled assistants, while opening the door to a completely reshaped client interaction."

We will use the price money to build our own proprietary platform built on agile based technology, incorporating gender lens investing to ensure women are served within the investment industry. Women, no matter their backgounds, will be able to invest confidently and confidentially anywhere in the world with easy to use 3 click platform to allocate their money into assets according to their specific goals.They will have access to products tailored to their needs to achieve their short- and long-term goals as well as invest according to their values. We will incorporate behavioural finance. Behavioural finance technologies can help measure risk tolerance and sensitivities more accurately. The platform will use Artificial Intelligence to eliminate stereotypes inherent in investing. This will bring wealth management to the masses especially women who are currently at a disadvantaged when it comes to wealth planning.

Women are more out of the digital economy hence PaceUP Invest is addressing women first. We are providing the tools to learn and to invest so that they can invest concretely to be more included in the digital world. Our global problem, solution and our target population are aligned with the goals of the Fellowship.  Our solution addresses the digital financial education inclusion of women, and girls to ensure financial independence since finance has been historically linked to men. 

PaceUP Invest aims to empower more women to build financial literacy and invest for their future. There is a substantial gender gap in financial knowledge with 30% of the global female adults are financially literate while for men it is 35%, according to the GFLEC reports and   surveys.  Thus, financial education programs are necessary, and programs targeted to women will provide a way to close the knowledge gap. PaceUP Invest aims to provide digital personalised learning tools to improve this and encourage economic participation of women and girls ultimately become financially independent.  We see financial knowledge and management as tools necessary for financial independence.

We will use the prize to develop our customised customised Learning Management System and customised investment platform built on scalable tech stack. If chosen, we plan to use the funds to create a hybrid online platform that will put together the holistic tools to move women from learning to investing powered by AI and ML. 

PaceUP Invest solution is to provide digital financial inclusion. Via learning, AI will make learning more accessible to those who might have otherwise struggled to learn in person. AI will also provide a global learning reach to these people through programmes that use language processing algorithms to provide more dynamic descriptions both usually and auditory in order to include every one irrespective of their backgrounds.

Voice enabled assistants, combined with evolution in artificial intelligence AI clearly have the potential to accelerate the shift toward digital and voice-enabled assistants, while opening the door to a completely reshaped client interaction."

We will use the price money to build our own proprietary platform built on agile based technology, incorporating gender lens investing to ensure women are served within the investment industry. Women, no matter their backgounds, will be able to invest confidently and confidentially anywhere in the world with easy to use 3 click platform to allocate their money into assets according to their specific goals.They will have access to products tailored to their needs to achieve their short- and long-term goals as well as invest according to their values. We will incorporate behavioural finance. Behavioural finance technologies can help measure risk tolerance and sensitivities more accurately. The platform will use Artificial Intelligence to eliminate stereotypes inherent in investing. This will bring wealth management to the masses especially women who are currently at a disadvantaged when it comes to wealth planning.

PaceUP Invest solution is to provide digital financial inclusion. Via learning, AI will make learning more accessible to those who might have otherwise struggled to learn in person. AI will also provide a global learning reach to these people through programmes that use language processing algorithms to provide more dynamic descriptions both usually and auditory in order to include every one irrespective of their backgrounds.

Voice enabled assistants, combined with evolution in artificial intelligence AI clearly have the potential to accelerate the shift toward digital and voice-enabled assistants, while opening the door to a completely reshaped client interaction."

We will use the price money to build our own proprietary platform built on agile based technology, incorporating gender lens investing to ensure women are served within the investment industry. Women, no matter their backgounds, will be able to invest confidently and confidentially anywhere in the world with easy to use 3 click platform to allocate their money into assets according to their specific goals.They will have access to products tailored to their needs to achieve their short- and long-term goals as well as invest according to their values. We will incorporate behavioural finance. Behavioural finance technologies can help measure risk tolerance and sensitivities more accurately. The platform will use Artificial Intelligence to eliminate stereotypes inherent in investing. This will bring wealth management to the masses especially women who are currently at a disadvantaged when it comes to wealth planning.