Munnypot, a new service offering affordable online financial advice, today announces it has soft launched, with the backing of respected industry partners.

Munnypot is a robo-advice and investment service that anyone can use to get straightforward financial advice in a language they can understand, at a fraction of the cost of a financial adviser or wealth manager. Munnypot soft launched to consumers in December and will be ramping up its marketing activity in early 2017.

As well as the previously announced support of SEI, Munnypot’s partners include: Virtual Affairs (Frontend solution provider, specialised in servicing financial clients); Ortec Finance (specialists in Goal-based financial planning); and Five Degrees (Customer Relationship Management and Business Process Management).

Together, these partners have ensured Munnypot has been able to build a sophisticated robo-advice platform to help consumers manage their savings digitally. It provides an intuitive WhatsApp style ‘chat-based’ user-interface that guides people in their savings and investment decisions, using straightforward language and a conversational style.

Simon Redgrove, co-founder of Munnypot, said, "The company we’re keeping says a lot about the huge ambition of Munnypot – we’re planning on shaking up the market and have partnered with some state-of-the-art organisations to help us do that. The initial response we’ve had from consumers has been overwhelmingly positive and we’re looking forward to quickly building our customer base in 2017."

Martijn Hohmann, CEO of Five Degrees, added, “Being a next generation digital banking technology provider, Five Degrees strongly believes in fuelling innovations, redefining customer experience and providing agility. Munnypot represents such a cutting-edge partnership and we will strive to continue to be game changers together in 2017”.

Brett Williams, Managing Director, SEI Wealth Platform, UK Private Banking, commented, “We are delighted to be partnering with Munnypot, which we believe will be a disruptive brand in the UK market and think the company’s user experience, mobile-first design and simplicity will greatly appeal to a broad range of consumers, not just the tech savvy mass affluent millennials. The innovative ongoing alert and messaging framework is extremely powerful and gives customers the chance to be regularly updated on their financial matters.”

Ton Kentgens, Global Business Development at Ortec Finance, said, “Ortec Finance works at the forefront of online financial advice. We develop advanced solutions for individual investors that so far are only available to the institutional market. Consumers are looking for financial advice that fits the context of their lives. We support initiatives to interact with customers using modern technologies, allowing them to achieve their goals by making the right investment decisions."

“Working with a game changer like Munnypot really underlines our ambition in transforming digital channels for international banks and investment companies,” says Robin Peters, Managing Director of Virtual Affairs. “Partnering with Munnypot turned out to be very pleasant and successful, so we can’t wait to see their customer base growing. We move finance forward.”

Munnypot is aiming to address the financial advice gap affecting 16 million people across Britain¹. As of May 2015, 47% of consumers had not received any form of financial advice within the last three years², yet research suggests that the demand is there - up to 5.4 million extra people would consider paying for advice if it cost less³. This is needed, because 57% of UK working adults have less than one month of income saved ⁴. It is widely believed that lack of clear and affordable guidance may be largely to blame.