Wealthscope with Pauline Shum Nolan (Founder) | EP15
Bringing perfolio management theory to the masses with portfolio analystics tools.
During the 15th episode of Fintech Impact, Jason Pereira interviews Pauline Shum Nolan, the Co-Founder and CEO of Wealthscope, an online tool for accessing portfolios. Pauline shares the creation and opportunities available with Wealthscope, which digs beyond performance, into various parameters like factor-based investing, fees, and long-term projections of income.
● 01:09: – Wealthscope is a web application, looking to “open the black box in retail wealth management.”
● 02:18: – Pauline began as a professor of finance for the last 25 years, and worked with the university pension plan for the last 14 years the on the institutional side.
● 04:40: – Wealthscope has a free B2C version for students, and investors, but will launch a premium version for investors that are willing to pay for more customized opinions through a subscription.
● 08:01: – Wealthscope built in analytics for proof of concept which allowed them to raise some pre-seed money for an in-house IT team. Downside protection is a big focus.
● 09:06: – Wealthscope has a proprietary portfolio scorecard that rates and grades risk-adjusted performance, downside protection, income, fees, and diversification including exposures.
● 12:15: – They are crafting the accumulation phase for retirement planning and are working on the drawdown phase.
● 13:52: – As far as grading for fees, if you are paying 2.5%, you are getting a poor mark.
● 16:06: – They use supervised machine learning with about 25 asset classes for Canada, and build different portfolios factoring in human capital.
● 21:06: – Data sources that Wealthscope is drawing from include: subscriptions to Exchange Traded Securities and Morningstar, and the use of a risk- tolerance survey.
● 26:03: – Wealthscope is currently a team of 10, including Pauline’s two business partners—one being an angel investor.
● 28:30: – It is important for investors to understand what is driving the risk.
3 Key Points:
1. Wealthscope has a proprietary portfolio scorecard that rates and grades along five dimensions: risk-adjusted performance, downside protection, income, fees, and diversification including exposures.
2. They use supervised machine learning with about 25 asset classes for
Canada, and build different portfolios factoring in human capital.
3. It is important for investors to understand what is driving the risk.
Tweetable Quotes:
- “At Wealthscope, we’ve launched the beta of the B2C version, which is free.” – Pauline Shum Nolan.
- “You (Wealthscope) are the first true second opinion service I’ve seen that is completely objective, as you are not tied to product in any way. That within itself is something that has been sorely mission from the marketplace.” – Jason Pereira.
- “Risk management over the long-term is a lot easier, and a lot more important as returns.” – Pauline Shum Nolan.
Resources Mentioned:
● Facebook – Jason Pereira’s Facebook
● LinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedIn
● Pauline Shum Nolan – LinkedIn for Pauline Shum Nolan
● Wealthscope – Website for Wealthscope