When cash is not king

Is wealth what you have today or what you'll have next year? 

Evidence suggests the former, particularly when interest rates are low. More than what you own in cash, property (heading for a bubble) or gold, (in a dip) what you love often gives the best value.   

‘Passion assets’ ranging from classic cars to fine wine are providing a steady return for many investors. 

In the past five years, cars, coins and jewels have returned 161 percent, 92 percent and 65 percent respectively, eclipsing Britain’s FTSE-100 stock indexup 15 per cent since the start of 2011.

And, according to the wine industry´s leading benchmark Liv-ex, fine wine is up 11.45 percent this year compared with 10.23 percent for the FTSE 100. Check this cracking infographic out 

Passion is also in fashion for High Net Worth Individuals in emerging markets. Last year, many of the world’s top 200 art collectors came from China and Brazil. From Chinese artefacts to post Brexit British real-estate, Asian investors are snapping up what they can physically own.

By contrast, August interest rates in the UK were at a record low of 0.25% and Australia’s central bank cut its cash rate to 1.5%. Winter is coming too.

But all is not lost. This week we upgraded our Personal Financial Management white-label software to enable customers to see what they own in assets alongside what they have in cash and what they owe in liabilities. This new feature completes the automatic account aggregation capability already available in the solution, allowing users to automatically retrieve their financial account balance and transactions.

• Users can now personally add their “offline” physical assets when assessing their wealth online.
• A range of assets are now supported on the eWise Aegis platform and Money Manager solution; including art, wine, stamps, gold, classic cars and aircraft
• The ‘offline’ assets and liabilities feature is available through the eWise API or offered to millions of users of eWise’s white label Money Manager solution
• Online and offline assets and liabilities are displayed on a single interface viewable on a desktop or mobile device
• The result is a 360° degree vision of wealth, allowing people to credit rate themselves

So... by allowing end-users to track the performance of their physical assets in addition to their online assets through our Aegis Platform and Money Manager solution, we provide a more holistic view of their overall wealth and asset performance.  After all, what's account aggregation without the big picture?