Not wanting to sound hyperbolic, we carefully asked Ed Lamark if he’s solved the participant data issue.
“I don’t think you’re too far off,” the Founder of The Wealth Pool conceded. “We truly do democratize data. That’s at our core. Everybody gets to share and see it without compromising anonymity.”
The Wealth Pool is participant-facing technology and DIY financial planning with crowdsourced data intelligence, which Lamark developed from his experience with financial advice.
“I was a client to a financial advisor for several years, and what I didn’t like about it was that it wasn’t in my control,” he explained. “I wanted to be able to input and run my own numbers, but when I left my advisor, I lost everything. There was no portability with the data. That inspired me to build The Wealth Pool.”
Meant to work in tandem with the retirement plan advisor, even though it’s DIY, it gives what Lamark described as a little bit more autonomy to the participants themselves. Wealth Pool members include individuals, families, businesses, employers, associations, colleges, and universities.
“When you look back in the history of wealth management, they’re always going after a certain threshold of assets, what we call the five percenters or above,” The Wealth Pool’s Troy Tarr added. “The Wealth Pool is dedicated towards everybody but more towards those 95 percenters that we forget about or don’t try to prospect.”
Mentioning the lead-gen feature inside this tool, he described the FICO-like score attached to each participant.
“It also allows the individual to go in and input and aggregate numbers electronically to work different scenarios,” Tarr explained. “They can actually see themselves against the entire pool of people. They can also narrow it down to their age groups, salary, and those types of things. And it’s the crowdsourcing, peer-to-peer gamification that sets it apart.”
The platform launched in January and currently has almost 400 participants. The pooled concept is about data pools so that participants can compare their financial profiles against others. It’s advisor-grade technology, but easy to use and in the consumer’s control. And the lead-gen portion helps with the ongoing convergence of retirement and wealth planning by identifying quality prospects.
“Behavioral science is a big part, and when you see others saving more for retirement in your age group, it should put pressure on you to save more,” Lamark concluded. “When you see others with less debt, it should pressure you to pay down your debts.
“The participant owns the data. You can export all your data in the Wealth Pool with one click. You’re not just getting participant data but household data as well. If you leave your advisor or recordkeeper, it’s all portable and goes with you.”
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