Frequently Asked Questions
Some of the questions we get most often from employers who want to launch financial coaching to their workplace.
Coaches are trained in all the fundamentals of personal finance – from ISAs to pensions – but they’re also trained to listen, help you define what’s important to you and support you to make progress.
Unlike other forms of financial education, it starts with you and what you want. It’s so much easier to learn about money and to build new habits, when it’s connected to what you really care about.
Our coaches will help plan your finances and make suggestions based on your goals … that’s coaching. And coaching is not regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).
But our coaches will never recommend a specific company’s investment, pension, mortgage or insurance product … that’s advice, and that is regulated by the FCA.
However, as a company, Octopus MoneyCoach does have automated low-cost services, that can recommend specific financial products, and which clients are welcome to use. This is financial advice, and so we as a company are regulated by the FCA, even though our individual coaches are not.
Your coach will never make money from any products you choose through these services, which means they’re on your side and act in your interests alone.
- Book unlimited sessions with your financial coach
- Get a visualised year-by-year forecast, all the way to retirement, so you can be confident making bigger financial decisions
- Find out exactly how much to save, invest and put into pension to reach your goals
- Get a year-by-year cash flow forecast, so you can be confident making bigger spending decisions
- Keep track of the money “to dos” you agree with your coach
- Add your partner’s finances at no additional cost
Take our word for it…financial coaching is difficult to do properly. We have been built from the ground up to do just that – deliver the very best financial coaching at the best price possible.
We’re building the UK’s biggest and most diverse community of accredited coaches, which allows us to support companies big and small. (We already provide coaching to several UK workplaces with more than 10,000 employees.)
All of our clients get dedicated access to their coach for as much time as they need.
Our coaches use professional-grade planning tools to build a personalised plan and action list for every client.
We take direct and ongoing responsibility for training, supervising and monitoring all of our financial coaches – that means clients aren’t passed on to an unknown party for coaching.
Some providers may also use financial advisors who may be incentivised to offer specific financial products to employees. Our coaches never recommend products, so you don’t have to worry about the liability of giving bad advice.
Finally, you can trust that we have long-term stability and backing because we’re part of the Octopus group.
But let’s face it – most financial content is really boring. We think there’s too much information and not enough personalisation. So most of our content is built around the big goals and milestones in an employee’s life. From getting a bonus to getting on the property ladder and starting a family – all of our content starts with topics employees actually care about.