Making Money Work, Together
Article originally hosted and shared with permission by The Christian Economic Forum, a global network of leaders who join together to collaborate and introduce strategic ideas for the spread of God’s economic principles and the goodness of Jesus Christ. This article was from a collection of White Papers compiled for attendees of the CEF’s Global Event.
Together. What a powerful word. It represents a positive state we strive for in most areas of life, perhaps because it is in the very nature of our God. We see togetherness in the person of God in the Trinity and in the systems He created. In Genesis, the Word says, “Let us make…” and describes in detail the creation of a universe where its distinct components all work together in harmony. After the fall, we were separated from God, but He made a way for us to be together with Him again. Through Christ’s work on the cross, we can be united with Him for eternity. Romans tells us that for those who love God, He is working all things together for our good. As His image bearers, when we see areas of life that are broken, we share in God’s nature when we work together to create systems that work together.
One area of life that seems to be continually broken for many people is in managing money. Study after study and statistic after statistic show that a majority of people have some form of trouble or stress with their finances. Over my 20+ years of experience in creating and selling financial solutions with a variety of companies in payments, fintech, advising, and banking, I continue to see new and amazing technological advancements that make financial tasks faster and easier. For instance, you can pay with your mobile phone at a store or click a single button online to purchase almost anything you want or need and have it delivered to your door. Despite all of the advancements, we see the average person struggling now more than ever with money. Part of the problem will always stem from spiritual, emotional, and behavioral issues. But there’s another issue that makes it difficult for most people to understand and manage their finances. Money related systems are not working together to provide the customer with a unified, easy to use, and simple to understand experience that aids in better money decisions. There’s an opportunity here to help make these systems work together better.
The finances of consumers are a tangled web that span banking, investing, insurance, real estate, taxes, and more. When each of these verticals have varying objectives, approaches, and terminology, even simple questions for the consumer become complex…like, “How much money can I spend today?” Full context becomes so necessary for any financial professional to have meaningful engagements with customers. For most consumers, the financial guidance they get is one-size-fits-all. Some people have the luxury of an advisory professional working with them to give connected advice in all areas, but that is rare and usually only for those with higher net worth. The banking industry also continues to add new capabilities and functionality to help improve people’s experience with their money. But banking customers still need good advice on how to build a wise plan and make good spending decisions.
There’s a real opportunity here for banking and advisory services to work together for the good of the shared customer. Both businesses have made significant advancements in their respective areas, but they don’t seem to be helping people take an integrated approach to make planning and banking work together. In order to accomplish this, there needs to be a common framework from which both businesses can operate and communicate.
I like to draw a comparison here to the area of time management. There are so many amazing solutions and tools developed that continue to help us manage our time more efficiently. The advantage with those is that people get to leverage a common framework in time
measurement. Time has two forms of temporal measurement, the calendar and the clock. The calendar organizes intervals of time, and the clock is a mechanism that counts the passage of time. Any new technology that aids in time management gets to utilize these universally common measurements. Though time is always finite and money is not, we can still glean from the framework of time management to help us improve money management.
In my current endeavor, we did just that. We designed a solution around the idea of
establishing a common framework for money measurement. We developed a simple but effective money organization system that helps people build a wise plan and then integrate that plan right into their banking experiences. Their plan becomes the calendar, and their accounts become the clock. It works with any budget and with any bank or card account. Now, their existing bank accounts become the cash management solution they need to make wise financial decisions. Many people try to use a standard budgeting tool, but the numbers in the budget never line up with their bank account balances. The misalignment in numbers creates significant friction that keeps people stressed or so discouraged they just give up. Our system utilizes the money framework to keep their plans aligned with their accounts with less effort. This common money framework approach serves the do-it-yourself budgeter well but also empowers advisory and banking professionals with a more comprehensive system to help bring financial wellness to their customers.
When I thought about how to deliver this solution into the market, Kingdom impact was a priority. We needed to find a way to work with Christian organizations that had a shared mission. God delivered in a big way. Crown Financial is partnering with us to provide the solution to Christians that are seeking to steward their finances well. Also, Classical
Conversations is a Christian homeschool company that will offer our solution to parents looking for a way to model and teach financial stewardship to their children.
As we all know, practical solutions sometimes lack greater Kingdom impact if they are confined to just Christians. We also want to make sure we impact the financial industry at large to help solve this universal problem. God saw fit to bless us with relationships in both the banking and advisory space with men and women who love the Lord and have a passion for working together to serve their industries. For example, we are launching the solution with First Southern National Bank in Kentucky as a service for their bank customers. This relationship will be especially important as we test, learn how to develop the ideal experiences, and integrate the right technologies into the banking systems. Doxa Advisors out of Minnesota is working closely with us to ensure we are designing a solution that works well in the advisory space. Working together with partners in education, ministry, advisory, banking, and other verticals will allow us to learn more and develop a better solution to have greater Kingdom impact.
Managing money can result in some form of brokenness for so many people. It is a big problem to solve. But God has given us a model in His character and in His creation to help solve big problems. By His grace, we can work together with aligned partners to create systems that work together for the good of our communities.