Donegal-born Sean McNulty is the founder of MyMoneyPlatform, a behind-the-scenes software solution designed to help people plan and manage their personal finance needs more effectively. The initial target customers for the system are banks and other financial institutions in Ireland, Britain and the US.
“We are the first company to automate financial advice and my original plan was to build MyMoneyPlatform as a B2C solution,” McNulty says. “But following discussions with our mentors we pivoted and built it out as a B2B offering instead. This was definitely the smarter option as the financial institutions already have relationships with thousands of customers.”
“The problem I identified is that the banks are now competing with the new digital companies that offer enhanced digital features to help people control their money better,” McNulty says. “They simplify the process using digitally rich and convenient tools and the banks are in danger of losing out because their investment focus tends to be more on big banking technology.
“Up to now financial institutions have viewed digital transformation too narrowly and often just as stand-alone front-end features such as mobile apps or online productcomparison charts,” he adds.
“As a result they run the risk of becoming digital laggards as competition from online financial start-ups who have the features ‘right’ becomes more intense. However, the focus of these on-line services is usually very narrow and concentrated on one aspect of personal finance such as investment for example. MyMoneyPlatform covers every aspect of a customer’s financial world.
“With our system bank customers can have one user-friendly place in which to manage all their finances while the banks have one platform on which to manage all of their customers’ needs. Basically our solution connects them easily with their customers to better serve their digital needs.”
McNulty comes from a financial services background. He completed an MSc in finance at the Smurfit Business School and worked as a personal finance consultant and then in hedge funds operations with JP Morgan in Dublin.
He also has start-up experience having helped his brother in the early stages of launching his digital publishing company in 2008. He started working on MyMoneyPlatform in 2012 and went full-time into developing it last year when he was accepted on to the Enterprise Ireland-funded, New Frontiers programme at Blanchardstown IT.
“There is no education on personal finance at primary, secondary or third level, yet it is something we all must deal with at some stage,” McNulty says. “I see financial advice as a need not a luxury and I wanted to make it simple and available to everyone. From the bank’s perspective our system provides customer insights they haven’t had access to before. As a result they can give their customers more tailored advice.”
The cost to an institution of using the MyMoneyPlatform will vary depending on how it wants to apply it.
“We expect some will opt for a regular subscription model whereas we have already been talking to one organisation that wants to buy the system and integrate into their existing on-line offering.
“So one size won’t fit all when it comes to the revenue model,” says McNulty.
MyMoneyPlatform has just been launched and is now in the market to raise about €500,000 to fund the next stage of its development. The company employs five people.
“We have bootstrapped heavily and managed to get this far on around €50,000,” McNulty says.
“I got a €15,000 stipend from Enterprise Irelandduring New Frontiers but the majority of the money has come from my own resources and from very supportive family members. I couldn’t have done it in the timeframe without them.”
