It's time to offer a truly holistic financial experience across products and business units. Consumers are no longer satisfied stitching together disjointed accounts from multiple brands just to keep their financial lives in order. They crave better and they want simplicity and connections across their accounts. They want their money to move around between the right accounts at the right time, without so much impetus being put on them to make all of those decisions.
But how can you truly achieve financial interconnectedness? It's not easy, but we have a few tips.
Stay in touch and follow us on:
Twitter: twitter.com/solsticesays
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/solstice/
Facebook: facebook.com/Solstice111/
Instagram: instagram.com/solsticegrams/?hl=en
And catch up with the latest technology news and insights at solstice.com/fwd
3. 3
PROPRIETARY & CONFIDENTIAL
solstice.com
Common things you have to do
after you get paid:
• Ensure you have enough in your
checking account to cover your
bills and mortgage or rent.
• Strategically distribute what’s left
over across your accounts.
• Decide how much money to
allocate to each of your goals.
• Determine if you should talk to any
financial professionals for advice.
*Survey done on Nov. 2018. n=126, Respondents
are ages 23-65, HHI $50k-$200k.
of people are
somewhat to
extremely stressed
about managing all
of their financial
accounts*
59%
4. You must manage the
plumbing of your finances
because of the siloed and
product-centric nature of the
financial world today. You
must continually move your
money around to meet your
wants and needs. However,
a shift has begun.
4
PROPRIETARY & CONFIDENTIAL
solstice.com
of people are using
any automatic or
recurring transfers to
manage their
money.*
Only 24%
*Survey done on Nov. 2018. n=126,
Respondents are ages 23-65, HHI $50k-$200k.
6. 6
PROPRIETARY & CONFIDENTIAL
solstice.com
You “roll-up the car window,”
but there is no hand-crank to
roll anymore.
You “film” things with
your smartphone, but
there is no film involved.
You hardly write checks anymore,
yet retail banks’ most common
product is a “checking account.”
You haven’t used a floppy
disk in 20 years, but we still
use it as the “save” icon.
7. 7
PROPRIETARY & CONFIDENTIAL
solstice.com
The point here is not that we should
rename “checking accounts” to something
more relevant. The real question is, “Are
checking and savings accounts still the
right way to facilitate our financial lives?”
The digitally transformed version of a
checking account is not just a clever new
name and a slick digital experience.
If we reimagine these accounts as serving
the users’ jobs-to-be-done, we can free
customers from the financial plumbing, of
moving money around and overdrafts.
Instead, the customer should be enabled
to focus on their goals.
79%
of people seek financial advice
from family and friends. Only
37% of people seek advice
from financial firms. There is an
opportunity for financial firms
to be more of a coach that
connects the big picture, not
just a set of financial products
and services.*
*Survey done on Nov. 2018. n=126,
Respondents are ages 23-65, HHI $50k-$200k.
8. “In the long-term, credit card
companies will just become
a network of pipes”
-F500 FinServ SVP
8
PROPRIETARY & CONFIDENTIAL
solstice.com
9. PROPRIETARY & CONFIDENTIAL
9 solstice.com
Brokerage
Bank
IRAs
401k
Credit Score
Credit Cards
These siloed digital
experiences focus on the
financial products they
complement, but none can
intelligently act across
product lines. This is
digitization — NOT digital
transformation.
of people think it is
somewhat simpler or
much simpler when
all their financial
accounts are with
one institution*
80%
*Survey done on Nov. 2018. n=105,
Respondents are ages 23-65, HHI $50k-$200k
10. PROPRIETARY & CONFIDENTIAL
10 solstice.com
12%
9% 10%
18%
27%24%
There isn't much left over
Checking account
Savings account
Savings and tax-advantaged accounts
Savings, taxable and tax-advantaged accounts
Somewhere else
*Survey done on Nov. 2018. n=126,
Respondents are ages 23-65, HHI
$50k-$200k.
Where does your money go
after your bills are paid?*
The most common answer
is that after their bills are
paid, people just leave the
leftover money in their
checking accounts. There is
an opportunity to help
people move their money
to where it helps them the
most.
11. PROPRIETARY & CONFIDENTIAL
11 solstice.com
• Provide for family
• Housing
• Retirement
• Lifestyle
Mortgage / Rent
Credit Card
401k
IRAs
Brokerage account
Savings Account
Checking accounts
Loans (car, personal, etc.)
Paycheck
Insurance (health, life, disability, etc.)
In Today’s Financial Product-Centric World,
You Have to Manually Move Money Between Pipes
Credit Score
12. Read-Only Aggregators Cannot Take
Actions for You Across Financial Products
PROPRIETARY & CONFIDENTIAL
12 solstice.com
Mortgage / Rent
Credit Card
401k
IRAs
Brokerage account
Savings Account
Checking accounts
Loans (car, personal, etc.)
Paycheck
Insurance (health, life, disability, etc.)
• Provide for family
• Housing
• Retirement
• Lifestyle
Credit Score
13. PROPRIETARY & CONFIDENTIAL
13 solstice.com
Mortgage / Rent
Credit Card
401k
IRAs
Brokerage account
Savings Account
Checking accounts
Loans (car, personal, etc.)
Paycheck
Insurance (health, life, disability, etc.)
In a Connected Financial Ecosystem,
the Plumbing is Handled For You
• Provide for family
• Housing
• Retirement
• Lifestyle
Whoever owns this
layer first wins.
Credit Score
14. A larger financial institution
that already offers a wide
swath of financial products,
like Chase, could use
partners to fill in the gaps in
its offerings. But from the
users’ perspective, it all
looks and feels like a Chase
experience.
14
PROPRIETARY & CONFIDENTIAL
solstice.com
Checking
Savings
Financial
Advisor
401k
Brokerage
Credit
Score
IRAs
Ecosystem of aggregated
financial products built
internally or sourced from
partners
Orchestration across
all financial products
Life
Insurance
Mortgage
Homeowners
Insurance
Credit
Card
Retirement
15. 15
PROPRIETARY & CONFIDENTIAL
solstice.com
A customer experience leader
could leverage more services
from partners, but would be
freed to focus more on the
experience and less on actually
managing any money.
Financial
Advisor
401k
Brokerage
Retirement
Credit
Score
Life
Insurance
Orchestration across
all financial products
Checking
Savings
Credit
Card
Homeowners
Insurance
IRAs
Mortgage
Ecosystem of aggregated
financial products built
internally or sourced from
partners
16. 16
PROPRIETARY & CONFIDENTIAL
solstice.com
Imagine being freed from
managing the plumbing of
your finances. Instead, a
Connected Financial
Ecosystem automatically
moves money between
accounts to optimally
achieve your goals, saving
time, mental effort, and
stress.
You’ve spent $12 of the $19 budgeted for
today. Keep it up to get yellow goals back on
track within 3 months.
Dream house fund is off track
On track to retire in 2045
6 months of cash reserves
529 plan is at risk
Get into the yellow by staying within
your daily spend budget. We’ll put
money here after you get on track
with your vacation fund and 529 plan.
On track to own home in 2047
Vacation fund is at risk
Net worth: $464,766
2020e2019e20182017
Needs and Goals
Today
17. 17
PROPRIETARY & CONFIDENTIAL
solstice.com
No financial services
company links your micro-
level view of your daily
spend with your macro-level
view of your goals. By
drawing a direct correlation
between your current
lifestyle and spend versus
your long-term goals, you
see how what you do now
affects future you.• A phone call has been scheduled with a tax
planner to discuss your upcoming bonus.
• You have more life insurance than is needed
due to your new job’s benefits. Your life
insurance policy will be auto-downgraded to
relocate money for retirement.
• Your Internet bill was auto-negotiated lower for
you.
Today
Current path
Eat out 75% less
and spend 50%
less on clothes for
dream house by
2025
Eat out 50% less
to get all goals
green
Jul. Aug. Sept. Oct. Nov. Dec.
Next Steps
Your Spend vs. Your Goals
You’ve spent $12 of
the $19 you have
budgeted for today
to get yellow goals
back on track.
18. 18
PROPRIETARY & CONFIDENTIAL
solstice.com
THREE STRATEGIES TO OFFER YOUR CUSTOMERS
A CONNECTED FINANCIAL ECOSYSTEM
Build It Borrow It Serve It
Build the other financial products
that you have not previously
offered so your customers can
complete their financial life
journey with your brand, because
you have everything they need.
This can mean either hiring the
talent to build it in-house, or
hiring a consultancy to build it for
you.
Don’t want to build the
infrastructure and deal with
regulations? Create partnerships
with other players that offer APIs,
so you can re-label their financial
products and pull them into your
holistic offering. To your
customers, it will look like your
brand offers all the financial
products they need. Look for
finservs using the “Serve It”
strategy.
If you have the scale, serve other
players who want to borrow your
capabilities so they don’t have to
build the products themselves.
Your addressable market is
finservs using the “Borrow It”
strategy.
1 2 3
19. 19
PROPRIETARY & CONFIDENTIAL
solstice.com
“The secret of change is to
focus all of your energy, not on
fighting the old, but on building
the new.”
How does your customer
experience need to change to
reduce the stress your customers
feel from managing all of their
financial accounts? Which is the
right strategy for you to provide a
connected financial experience, not
just financial products?
20. PROPRIETARY & CONFIDENTIAL
20 solstice.com
Reimagine your business around customer needs,
not financial products
Jared Johnson
Financial Services Strategist, Solstice
jjohnson@solstice.com
@JRJ2
solstice.com
