Former GB international track athlete Ben Waterman, who two years ago co-founded a financial platform to link multiple accounts from around the world, is now at the forefront of a race to improve digitisation within the wealth management and personal finance sector.
And with pre-seed funding of £300,000 plus backing from the Maltese Government to support the launch of a new app, his London-based company, Strabo (www.strabo.app), will be taking a leading role in the sector’s drive towards greater technological advancement.
Ben, who has degrees in both economics and finance from Birmingham and Oxford Universities, said: “When I started working in wealth management, I was amazed to discover that there was no centralised platform to manage investments and provide data insights. Tracking balances alone was a challenge, particularly with so many different asset classes, so that provided me with the inspiration to develop Strabo and to do just that, before even thinking about forecasting and analytics.
“I believe the personal finance and wealth management sector has been one of the last to innovate and is still very much in need of further digitisation. With the introduction of our platform, investors will now have the advantage of being able to build a customised investment dashboard to have the ability to manage their assets around the world,” he added.
Currently, Strabo connects to 10,000+ financial institutions, including banks and brokerage accounts from the UK, Canada, USA, Ireland, Netherlands, Spain, France, New Zealand and Australia but further expansion into India and the Middle East is expected to be completed shortly. A new mobile portfolio tracker app is also coming soon while clients can also look forward to innovative features such as deeper analytics on all their investments, asset allocation and tax insights.
Non-executive director of Strabo, Michael Magdongon, said: “There is a huge opportunity for us to integrate Strabo into banks and give more people the opportunity to effectively manage their investments efficiently.
“We’re looking forward to an exciting future where we can bring greater opportunities to more people wanting to expand their portfolios.”
The introduction of a financial health monitor will let clients break down their portfolio holdings by asset class and use pre-set thresholds to unearth the drivers – and drags – on their net worth, giving them the big picture with smart alerts and real time price data.
Mr Waterman added: “For many clients this will be a game-changer in personal finance, providing them for the first time with a product that makes it easy to see and manage assets around the globe.”
