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Silvur Financial App Helping Baby Boomers Navigate Retirement | Financial Planning - YouTube
Channel: Aging Media Show
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Hanh: On this episode of Boomer
Living, I have Rhian Horgan on the show.
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I'm excited to talk to
her about her FinTech app
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that's making waves in the
senior living community.
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So Rhian thank you so much for
taking the time to be here with me
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today and welcome to boomer living.
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Can we start by having you share
some background information?
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Where are you from and what does
your expertise lie, and how did
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you get interested in this field?
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Rhian: Sure.
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So I'm the founder and CEO of Silvur.
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We're an app that's dedicated to helping
baby boomers navigate their next act.
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So really focused on individuals in their
fifties and sixties, as they navigate this
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new set of health and wealth decisions,
as they embark on their next act.
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Prior to founding the company, I had
worked for JP Morgan for about 17 years.
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And through that, had spent a lot of time
advising families on their investments
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and it become as a result of that, the
trusted child and my parents reached out
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to as they were navigating retirement.
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And as my parents started to navigate this
series of health and wealth decisions,
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I think the thing that really surprised
me was that, all this modern technology
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that had been built to really make
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financial and health decisions,
easier and empower the consumer, had
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really been built for millennials.
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And there was very little technology
that had been built to support this
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very large set of consumers who
are arguably making some of the
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biggest decisions of their lifetime.
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And so inspired, by
needing to help my parents.
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I started the company.
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Hanh: Wow congratulations.
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I feel like retirement has changed in
so many ways over the last 20 years,
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but the industry has not evolved enough
to meet the needs of the retirees.
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So do you feel this way too?
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And how, how could you describe
some of the ways that this is true?
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Rhian: So I think the innovation
that we've seen over the last two decades
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has been really about the accumulation
phase of preparing for retirement,
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whether it was auto enrollment,
target, date funds, really trying
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to make it easier for consumers
to frankly get on the ladder of
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preparing and saving for retirement.
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But the reality is it's the second phase,
which is actually the decumulation phase.
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And it's this series of new decisions
that a consumer has to make.
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But frankly, aren't just about investing.
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It's about understanding
your healthcare costs.
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It's about choosing a Medicare plan.
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It's about making our
social security election.
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And to date, what we've seen is,
not a lot of modernization or
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innovation around that space.
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And so what we get
really excited about is
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frankly, building the playbook to help
this consumer feel empowered as they
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navigate this new set of decisions,
which are really all about decumulation
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in a world where, unlike their parents'
generation who had pensions and income
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for life; this is a generation that
needs to self fund their retirement.
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And so really helping us consumer
understand, the steps they need to
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take to successfully make their money
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last a lifetime we think
is really critical.
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Hanh: So the stereotype around
seniors, let's say the silent generation
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is that they aren't tech literate.
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They don't like using technology
and many may not be even online.
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Is this true in reality?
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And how is the role of technology
in supporting the older adults?
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Rhian: Yeah.
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So the first thing is I don't
really believe in the word "Senior."
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If there is a, I think a misnomer in the
market today that everyone over the age
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of 50 is, thrown together in one bucket.
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That's like saying everyone
under the age of 50 is the same.
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And I will tell you, I know for
certain that the way my children
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who are six and eight navigate the
internet is very different to the
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way I navigate the internet.
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So the first thing is I think about the
over 50 crowd is having two demographics.
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There's the baby boomer generation, people
in their fifties and sixties who grew up
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using computers who are tech literate.
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They're online.
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And then there is, I would say
the 75 plus crowd, which is really
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the silent generation who grew
up in a different environment.
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And while that generation is
embracing technology, they're
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not embracing technology in the
same way that baby boomers are.
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We see baby boomers behaving a lot
more like Gen X than the market really
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realizes, this is a consumer again
who used computers in the eighties.
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They're online.
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They're on social media.
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And, but they navigate
technology differently.
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And so when we see a baby boomer
struggling with technology, I would pause
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it that it's not because they don't know
how to use technology, it's because the
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technology was not designed for them.
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And at its very core, I'm going to, I
would just contrast my young children.
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to my father.
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So my young children
have grown up in a world
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that's like a touchscreen
technology world.
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So they expect everything they interact
with to be, be touched on the screen.
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And so I see them struggle
with a mouse, right?
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A mouse for them is really challenging
because it's not the role they grew up in.
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My father, on the other hand, read
CAT scans and MRIs on a computer as
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a doctor in the eighties from home.
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So working from home in the eighties,
which is getting you wouldn't think
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about, and secondly, being able to
access technology from home, but
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he grew up using a computer first.
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And so the way that he navigates
the internet is different from
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someone who's used to, used to a
mobile first or touch screen.
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And so at the end of the day,
what we think a lot about is.
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this demographic is tech savvy.
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It's just that they're
patterns are different.
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And how do you design an experience
that embraces those patterns?
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Hanh: Very good analogy.
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I am a young baby boomer and in
my mid fifties, you're right.
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I think we can't group anybody that's,
50 and above to be one demographic.
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There's several, there's
two, at least, maybe three.
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Can you tell us about your App
Silvur, what does it do to benefit
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the, the aging population and
what led you to creating this app?
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Rhian: Yeah.
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So the, so our App Silvur is
really dedicated to helping baby
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boomers, navigate their next act.
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And I use the word act rather
than retirement, because I think
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retirement, isn't what it used to be.
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And if you're in your fifties, you're
equally likely to be thinking about
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starting a new business or a new job.
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As you might be thinking about
downsizing your home and thinking
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about where you might want to
live, in your seventies and beyond.
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What we do through the app, is we
give all of our customers a free
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retirement plan and a retirement score.
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The score, you can think about it
as equivalent to what a millennial
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gets through a credit score,
but it's really focused on this
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customer's biggest fear, which is
running out of money and retirement.
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So in its simplest format, we
help our customers understand
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how long will their money lasts.
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It'll last till 80 or 85 or 90.
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The importance of this
plan for this generation,
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I can't overemphasize enough.
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And that's because this customer has money
and assets and lots of different places.
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They've likely had three
or four different jobs.
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If they're married, their spouse
has three to four different jobs.
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So think about all those 401k's
that are floating out there,
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needing to really create a plan
that pulls all the pieces together.
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But that plan is more
than just investments.
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Again, it goes back to understanding
your spending and retirement, your
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government benefits and retirement.
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So at the heart, we help
customers really create that plan,
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understand how long their money
is going to last in retirement.
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Give them tips around how they
can make it last longer, and then
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empower them to make these decisions.
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we have a lot of content that
helps customers navigate decisions
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like social security and Medicare.
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And we've also launched a retirement
store that helps our customers and get
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access to the new products and services
they're going to need in this next act.
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Hanh: So for the baby boomers
approaching the later, third or fourth
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part of their lives,
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I see this app, give them the ability to
improve their financial fitness over time.
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Walk me through that process.
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Rhian: Yeah, so we make
it really easy to get started.
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We ask customers a few pieces
of information, around their
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age, their salaries, so that we
can predict what their social
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security benefits can look like.
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They can either manually
enter their asset information
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so we understand approximately
how much assets they've saved,
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or we've also partnered with
Plaid, which is owned by VISA,
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so that customers can actually connect
their accounts and really quickly pull in
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their entire balance sheet in one place.
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From that experience, the first thing
that our customer gets is a score.
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It tells them how long their savings
are going to last in retirement.
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We also give them the tools to understand
how they can make that money last longer.
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So, we allow them to adjust their decision
around social security, adjust their
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spending, adjust their retirement date,
perhaps add some part-time income.
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So out of that first experience,
we're really trying to empower the
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customer with is this really quick
snapshot and where they stand.
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We show them what their retirement
income will look like over time.
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We also show them what their retirement
expenses will look like over time.
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Now, all of this has done, with a goal of
being human in a world that sees numbers.
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So what you don't see in the experience
right now is lots of fancy charts,
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lots of Monte Carlo simulations.
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I assure you all those Monte
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Carlo simulations are being
done underneath the hood.
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We have, a set of algorithms that we've
built that has over 3000 data points.
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So, a lot of hard science underneath
the hood to give these projections,
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but what we really want to do at the
end of the day, is give customers
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the numbers that matter to them.
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And what matters to them is is
my money gonna last a lifetime?
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And what does that paycheck look like?
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Hanh: Especially now COVID-19
has, has deterred many's, retirement.
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So this does this app only
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intended to help the older
adults, and are there other
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groups who it could help as well?
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Rhian: So, we're squarely
focused on helping Americans who
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are in their fifties and sixties.
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And the reason that we focused on
this demographic is that there's a
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new level of precision that's needed
around navigating these retirement
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decisions that you're making.
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So if you're in your thirties and forties,
you're more likely to be thinking about
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saving for your child's college education.
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Maybe refinancing your mortgage, maybe
even paying down your own student loans.
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By the time you're getting into
your fifties and sixties, you're
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actually thinking about, can I do
a catch-up contribution on my 401k?
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How do I max out my IRA?
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Should I think about refinancing or do
I actually want to think about selling
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and downsizing and buying a smaller home?
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And so there's a different set of
decisions as customer is making.
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And so in order to truly
serve this customer, our app
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is wholly dedicated to them.
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As time goes on and as our customers
age, you would expect to see
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additional features being added.
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But for now, we're really built for that
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customer is in their fifties and sixties,
today or average customer is 58 years old.
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Half of our customers are female.
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Most of our customers are still working.
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So this is a really like active,
engaged group of consumers, who
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is really excited about planning,
what that next act looks like.
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Hanh: How have you made
sure the user experience
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can be inclusive for the disability baby
boomers, sometimes face such as vision loss?
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Rhian: So, what we've done in the app
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and this is, I'd say as time goes
on, there'll be an evolution.
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But the first thing we've done
is spent a lot of time, really
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understanding like color and shade.
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And so there's a lot of work
that you can do within an app
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That's frankly, invisible
to the naked eye.
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that's all about, how do you
set up the contrast in the
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experience to make it accessible?
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And so that's the first
thing that we've done.
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when I think about where we
go in the future, I do see an
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older part of this demographic.
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So when you get into your seventies
and eighties, I actually think that
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voice can become a really critical
component to the experience.
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We don't see voice as being critical
for this consumer, from the testing that
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we've done in their fifties and sixties.
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But have absolutely from day one.
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made sure that kind of accessibility
through the choice of color and
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screen design, is front and center.
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The other thing that we do and this
kind of goes to the heart of what I
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think is unique about our company is
that we've invested in what's called
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"User Design" from the earliest days.
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And so we do a tremendous amount
of user research, user testing, and
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that's, in-person testing, that's
digital testing, that's survey work to
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really understand, what is, and isn't
working with our, for our customers.
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And that I think, as you look at our
experience today, what you'll see is
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that a lot of the iterations we've
had in the experience are really based
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on the feedback that we're getting
from customers around, what they're
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looking for and the information that
they're looking to share with us.
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Hanh: So have you found
it difficult to get buy in from
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seniors to adopt, technology?
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Rhian: I don't think
about our customer as senior.
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So our customers are in
their fifties and sixties.
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These are working, vibrant individuals
who are using technology every day.
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Again, Hannah yourself,
you run a podcast, right?
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So these are people that are on Facebook.
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They're FaceTiming with friends or
having Zoom cocktail parties right now.
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This is not your grandmother.
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This is a consumer in
their fifties and sixties.
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And, over and over again, all we
see is that their behavior looks
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a lot more like Gen X than most
of the markets are proceeds.
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Hanh: So something else
that I know you're passionate
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about is the intersection of
health and wealth in America.
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So can you tell us more about
the, the intersection and the
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implication of it on the baby boomers?
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Rhian: Yeah.
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So I think one of the, big aha moments I
had early on in building our company was
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this intersection of health and wealth.
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For ...
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soon to be retirees.
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And I like, I would just say
that myself personally, I've been
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fortunate enough not to have found
healthcare, to be a financial issue.
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What I found when we talked with soon
to be retirees and early retirees
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was that every single person talked
about health care in financial terms.
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And when you dig underneath the
surface, it's not surprising.
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The average couple who's 65 today will
spend $280,000 on the cost of health
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care over the course of their retirement.
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And that, by the way, doesn't factor
in a nursing home or long-term care.
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So $280,000 just for basic
healthcare, that's a financial issue.
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When you think about those numbers
and you think about other financial
[775]
decisions people are making, that's
like thinking about how you're going
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to fund your kids' college education.
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So as we think about planning in the
app, we've spent a bunch of time really
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helping customers understand what their
healthcare costs are going to look like.
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There's a known piece, and
then there's an unknown.
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So the known as thinking about your
Medicare insurance, the unknown is,
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what sort of critical illnesses you
might face, really, and what sort
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of long-term care you might need.
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It's really helping customers
understand how insured do they want to
[800]
be as they navigate these decisions.
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That question of how insure they
want to be is really critical.
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We, did an analysis recently in
partnership with Katie Couric,
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where we looked at consumers who
are applying for Medicare this year
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and enrolling in Medicare Advantage.
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And what we saw was that there's a number
of Medicare Advantage plans that on a
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short-term basis are really low cost.
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And so they can feel good for
your budget on a monthly basis.
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But the reality is that if you have
a critical illness like cancer, or
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you end up being very under-insured.
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And so this analysis showed that the
consumer who had a low premium, Medicare
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Advantage plan ended up, losing four
years on their retirement score when they,
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when they had a critical illness, because
there were so many out-of-pocket costs.
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So this is a whole new
world for this consumer.
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This consumer, many of them have
had their healthcare covered
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or paid for by their employer.
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These are really big decisions.
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And I think, particularly for women, who
tend to live longer really understanding
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the healthcare decisions you're
making in your fifties and sixties
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can actually have really significant
implications later on in life.
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Hanh: Very true.
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It seems like often retirement
health is as much of a financal
[868]
issue as it is an actual health issue.
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Would you agree with that?
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Rhian: Absolutely again, then
go back to this $280,000 number.
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It's, it is financial and I think
what's interesting is that the
[880]
financial services industries
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doesn't treat it as financial.
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And so that when we think about the
unique position that we're taking, at
[887]
Silvur to help our consumers is really
thinking about this as part of the plan.
[891]
But I think when you typically
talk to a financial advisor,
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health is viewed as a health issue
rather than as a financial issue.
[897]
Hanh: That's great.
[898]
So with regard to your app, people can
find you on the website, on iOS, and
[903]
what other means, can people find you?
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Rhian: Yeah, you can go online,
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it's www.Silvur.com, SILVUR.com
[911]
We're currently available
as an iOS app. In 2021
[916]
we'll also be launching
[917]
a website so that if you're, if you'd
just like to browse the web, or even if
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you're an Android user, that you'll be
able to access information on the web.
[925]
Hanh: Great.
[925]
Great.
[926]
So on a personal level, what do
you think is your biggest strength
[929]
that enables you to have a unique,
impactful on let's say the baby
[932]
boomers with their financial vitality.
[935]
Rhian: So if I reflect back
on my, career pre starting Silvur, I
[940]
would go back actually to one of our
core values at Silvur, which is being
[943]
human in a world that sees numbers.
[945]
I worked in financial
services for 17 years.
[948]
But I would say that I was an accidental
employee of a financial services company.
[952]
I did not grow up around
people in finance,
[955]
but I found the, real life applicability
of financial, financial concepts and
[960]
financial terms really attractive
to me when I was in university.
[963]
When I think about my time at JP
Morgan, I was one of these people who,
[968]
was really close to the customer and
really wanted to empower my customers.
[972]
I had, customers who had built
amazing businesses, but they weren't
[975]
necessarily financial geniuses,
but they were really smart.
[978]
And so I learned really early on that,
you have to be able to communicate
[982]
financial concepts in different
languages to different consumers.
[985]
And when I think about what we're
doing now at Silvur, that really
[989]
has played out in how we've actually
invested in design, how we've invested
[993]
in making the app really inclusive
and met our customer, where they are,
[997]
which is our customer is fearful of
running out of money in retirement.
[1000]
How do we empower them?
[1002]
We don't empower them by showing them lots
of graphs and Monte Carlo simulations.
[1007]
We empower them by meeting them
where they are with a score that
[1010]
very simply tells them how long their
money is going to last in retirement.
[1014]
So this learning how to translate
complex financial concepts,
[1018]
I did it for 17 years when I
was at JP Morgan and we're using
[1021]
a new set of digital tools,
[1023]
and that frankly, I think allows us to go
even further than I was able to go before
[1027]
through this technology infrastructure.
[1029]
Hanh: Great.
[1029]
Great.
[1030]
One thing I wanna add is
[1032]
spending, managing your finances
[1035]
Is often an emotional issue, right?
[1038]
How do people, millennials, let's say
thirties, forties, just at any age
[1043]
group, what can they do to remove that
emotion in managing their finances?
[1050]
Rhian: This is where I think
technology is making it a lot
[1053]
easier for all of us, which is,
by connecting our accounts with
[1056]
Plaid, which is owned by VISA.
[1058]
It's a very easy to get a quick
read, even on a daily basis of
[1062]
what your spending looks like.
[1063]
I think one of the big, interesting
insights from our customers over the
[1066]
course of, COVID-19 has been actually
how much they're, They're saving.
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So their spending has dropped.
[1073]
It's not surprising in some ways,
because they're not driving to work
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so they don't have gas expenses.
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They're not traveling.
[1079]
But I think the things that are
probably most interesting is how
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their spending patterns are changing
and will likely to stay that way.
[1085]
And an example I would just give
you is around entertainment.
[1087]
Our customer was more likely to have that
[1090]
year long subscription to a
sports team tickets, was more
[1094]
likely to go to the movies.
[1095]
And now what they're doing is
they're canceling those tickets.
[1098]
They're buying Netflix,
they're buying ESPN plus.
[1101]
And so our customers on average
are seeing over $250 a month
[1105]
in reduced spending, that
[1108]
adds up over time that can add two or
three years to your retirement score.
[1111]
So what I think is really
interesting about COVID-19 is that
[1114]
we're seeing all these new patterns
and how consumers are spending.
[1117]
And many of them I think,
are going to be here to stay.
[1119]
And many of these are actually
really good for our customers
[1122]
bottom line, when it comes
to retirement security.
[1125]
Hanh: I agree.
[1126]
We've canceled our gym membership,
eating out less, maybe to
[1130]
support the local restaurants.
[1132]
We still do some carry
out, but, Yeah, you're right.
[1135]
Spending is less just because
of the uncertainty with the
[1138]
next months and years to come.
[1140]
Rhian: Yeah, and look
and after it look we're gonna,
[1141]
it's going to be a year, right?
[1143]
that we're at this, by the time,
things hopefully start to normalize
[1146]
and a year people's patterns change.
[1148]
And I really believe that a lot of
these patterns won't be undone.
[1151]
Hanh: Do you have anything
else that you would like to share?
[1153]
Rhian: No I think, look
at the end of the day, our goal,
[1155]
at Silvur is to really empower
this next act for the consumer.
[1159]
For anyone that works for a big
company, we have a really exciting
[1162]
retirement store where we partner with
other brands, who can deliver great
[1167]
products and services to this customer.
[1168]
And so as examples, we have partners who
are helping our customers navigate ACAm
[1173]
Medicare, Trust, and Wills,
Mortgage refinancing.
[1177]
So if you work for a company that's
really excited about, helping,
[1181]
this consumer we'd love to have a
conversation about including you.
[1184]
Hanh: I'll include the
app, the website, and so forth
[1186]
into the show notes as well.
[1188]
Rhian: All right.
[1189]
Hanh: Thank you.
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