South Yorkshire financial planning firm set to launch series of free financial advice tools

William Bottomley, director at Lifetime, said: “We would like to start the conversation in the country about how, as a financial services industry, we are not very good at helping the vast majority of people.

“We are very good at helping a very small amount of people who are right at the top of the earnings spectrum, but there's a real disservice there to the vast majority of people.

“The solutions that are out there aren't very good at the moment, so there needs to be a conversation about that.”

The company also has plans to launch financial planning help specifically aimed at young families and children, with children’s stories set to become available on the app.

Lifetime will launch its free, publicly available app in January 2024.

The firm estimates that 92 per cent of people in the country do not use or have access to a financial advisor.

Mr Bottomley said: “Only a handful of people have financial planners. Everybody else is making these decisions based on what the man in the pub says or what they read on the internet, and neither are particularly good ways of making difficult financial decisions.

“That could be decisions on the right type of mortgage or investment, how to put money into a pension, or how to look after your family if someone is ill or dies. Most people are making decisions without really being informed and having all the facts in front of them.

“And so we wanted to produce a good education tool for people, which will help people make good decisions, and then if they want to go on to the next step they can get a plan and see a financial advisor.”

Andrew Wealthall, chief operating officer at Lifetime, said that although those using its free services will not be prompted or asked to make purchases, the firm hopes that people will go on to use them when they do eventually need a paid service. Lifetime will also offer a subscription service for £4.99, which gives customers access to workshops and webinars, as well as personalised financial planning.

He added: “This is not about selling anything to anybody, it's about putting something in the pockets of every single individual where they can go and find out what they need to know, without the jargon and nonsense, and without being sold to. All throughout the app and the education stage with us, at no point does anyone recommend you should take a product.

As well as launching its free and subscription services, Lifetime has now sought to flip its business model, providing financial planning help to a large number of people for a low price, rather than the traditional model of charging high prices to a small number of customers.

Mr Bottomley said: “We understand that if you charge somebody £1,000 to see an advisor, then really we’re not fulfilling what we want to do. We want to make it accessible, and it isn't if you’re charging that price, so we made it less than £5 a month.”

“We hope what will happen is that quite a few of those people will become full-time clients, and some people in their 30s might be clients of ours for the next 50 years, then that relationship will grow and continue.

“So we’re very happy about the amount of money we’re making on it, but we’re always looking at how to make that service better and more efficient.”

The firm, which was founded 22 years ago, is also working on a number of contracts with businesses to provide financial planning to their staff through its app. Lifetime said it is in the late stages of a contract with a large Yorkshire council, as well as a large retailer and fast food company.

The company also noted how its history of using technology had helped it switch to servicing a large number of clients through its online platforms.

Mr Bottomley said: “We've always been quite an innovative firm, we were always the first to adopt an awful lot of new things within the industry, but everything we do now is online.

“One of the reasons that financial advisors in the UK only look after a small number of people is because they can't service many clients - they can't deal with the volume.

"Generally speaking, that small number of people will have a large amount of money, meaning not many people have access to these kinds of services.

“We’ve found that using technology has enabled us to deal with more and more clients, and that's how we can also make this profitable for ourselves, by working on volume as much as anything.”