SPONSORED BY TIMELINE
Investing in the stock market has often been viewed as an intimidating, complex world reserved for experts, leaving many everyday individuals feeling excluded. Financial jargon, market fluctuations, and the fear of losing money can deter people from actively participating in wealth-building opportunities.
However, thanks to innovators like Timeline, the landscape is shifting. Timeline empowers financial advisers with unique planning and portfolio management technology — a complete ecosystem — that enables them to deliver better advice to more clients at a lower cost. This has transformed financial planning, making it more accessible, inclusive, and transparent to individuals from all walks of life, and ultimately 10 million retirementals in the UK.
Having surpassed £7bn assets under management (AUM) in 2024, Timeline has been the fastest-growing business in its sector for the last three years (based on net asset growth and percentage increase) and was highlighted as having the best performance over a 1 year timeframe among the 10 biggest MPS providers. Here, we take a closer look at how Timeline is demystifying stock market investing, and empowering individuals and advisers alike.
Making stock market investing more accessible
For too long, wealth creation through investing has been seen as the domain of the wealthy or financially savvy, leaving large segments of the population without the tools or knowledge to build long-term wealth.
By making investing more accessible, Timeline is levelling the playing field and opening doors to personal wealth creation for everyday individuals. This democratisation of investing is particularly important in today’s financial climate, where traditional savings avenues often fail to offer substantial returns. Through Timeline’s focus on long-term financial planning, people can move from simply saving money to actively growing their wealth.
Technological innovation and visualisation of goals
Technology is central to Timeline’s mission to make investing easier for everyday people, and theirs is leading the way within the industry. In a 2024 industry poll by Professional Adviser, Timeline was named as having ‘the most innovative technology’, among a range of financial advice providers.
Rather than focusing on the technicalities of individual stocks or market trends, Timeline helps advisers centre their conversations around the real-life goals that matter most to people, such as saving for retirement, buying a home, or securing their family’s financial future.
Timeline’s platform enables advisers to create personalised financial plans tailored to their client’s specific objectives. Through intuitive visualisation tools, individuals can model various financial scenarios, track their investments, and see how their portfolios perform over time.
By focusing on personal goals rather than abstract investment strategies — and providing this ability to visualise progress — Timeline empowers people to take charge of their financial future and makes stock market investing feel relevant and attainable.
We truly believe that successful investing starts with a clear financial plan tailored to the goals of the individual involved,” says Timeline’s founder and CEO Abraham Okusanya. “Our technology helps create those financial plans, visualise goals and model various scenarios in a way that account for unexpected events. This is key to how people invest their money, and making investing more approachable.”
WATCH: Timeline’s CEO Abraham Okusanya and Chief Investment Officer Nikki Hinton Jones talk to Lukwesa Burat as part of the ITN Business programme, The Future of Investing.
Streamlining financial planning for advisers
Financial advisers play a crucial role in guiding individuals through their investment journey, and Timeline’s technology significantly enhances their ability to provide high-quality, personalised advice.
For advisers, managing multiple clients and staying on top of evolving financial strategies can be time-consuming and complex. Timeline simplifies the financial planning process for advisers by offering a powerful set of tools that automate many complex tasks, such as tax calculations, scenario planning, and tracking investment performance across different market cycles. Advisers can now create personalised financial plans faster, while ensuring that they are robust and tailored to each client’s specific needs. This streamlining process allows advisers to focus less on administrative work and more on delivering high-quality advice and building strong relationships with their clients.
Additionally, Timeline’s platform demystifies the concept of market cycles for both advisers and their clients. By clarifying these cycles and showing how they affect long-term investment strategies, the platform helps remove the illusion of complexity that often surrounds the stock market.
A ‘no-frills’ approach: Indexed portfolios
Timeline’s evidence based investment strategy often revolves around simple, no-frills indexed portfolios. These portfolios are designed to do what they say on the tin — track a specific market index, providing broad exposure to the stock market with minimal fuss. This approach mirrors the rise of indexing over the last 50 years in the United States, where there has been a shift from active to index funds. In the UK, indexed portfolios now account for around 25 percent of mutual funds, a figure that continues to grow.
By using indexed portfolios, Timeline is delivering on its promise to make stock market investing straightforward, affordable, and transparent. Indexed portfolios eliminate the need for costly fund managers and excessive fees, allowing investors to retain more of their returns over time.
Timeline was named as ‘The Most Recommended MPS among Financial Advisers’ by Defaqto
Reducing costs and fees for retail investors
One of the critical barriers to entry for everyday investors has been the high fees associated with many investment options. Traditional multi-asset funds in the UK typically charge average fees of around 0.8 percent, but Timeline’s platform offers a more affordable solution. By providing access to institutional pricing, Timeline allows retail investors to enjoy the same benefits that large institutional investors have long enjoyed, often reducing fees by up to 90 percent. This democratisation of pricing further levels the playing field and ensures that investors are not losing out on returns due to high fees.
Building a future of financial security
A recent YouGov survey revealed that 57 percent of UK adults do not feel financially prepared for retirement. This statistic underscores the importance of creating a positive association between the stock market and personal wealth creation, future security, and comfort in retirement. Timeline is meeting this challenge head-on by linking investing to real-life goals that matter to individuals.
“We want to help people understand that investing isn’t just for the experts. It’s a practical way for anyone to build wealth in the longer term and achieve financial security for their family, by owning a slice a tiny slice of some of the best companies — not just in this country but globally,” says Abraham. “Investing doesn’t have to be complicated; with the right set of tools, a little bit of guidance and a focus on long-term financial planning, we can help people build wealth and enjoy a comfortable retirement”.
Timeline’s platform is reshaping the narrative around stock market participation, emphasising long-term financial planning as the key to growing wealth over time. Through its innovative technology, investment philosophy, and focus on empowering financial advisers, Timeline is helping to create an industry that truly delivers on its promises; one that offers “Money for Life” and a brighter, more secure future for everyone.
Visit www.timeline.co to learn more.
