Franklin Templeton, iGrad Financial Wellness Platform Offers Personalization

Franklin Templeton has partnered with iGrad to develop MyFi Guide, a financial wellness digital platform that retirement plan advisers can share with defined contribution (DC) plan sponsors and participants.

It features iGrad’s “Your Money Personality” financial behavior assessment, which analyzes each user’s “financial personality.” It also includes financial education courses with personalized action plans on topics including budgeting, mortgages, health care, college savings, student loan repayment, banking, credit, financial planning and more.

It can conduct an analysis on how prepared people are for retirement and the best price range for a home purchase. It also includes a suite of student loan and higher education tools, personal finance calculators and a real-time budget tool. Artificial intelligence (AI) is built into the tool.

Franklin Templeton learned in its 2020 “U.S. Retirement Income Strategies and Expectations” survey that employees have a wide range of financial priorities, with 30% saying that saving for retirement is their top priority. However, 40% first want to pay off debt, and 45% believe saving for emergencies is most important.

“We can improve the likelihood of American workers reaching their retirement goals through increased personalization,” says Yaqub Ahmed, head of Franklin Templeton’s U.S. retirement and insurance businesses. “We know that successful retirement planning is not an isolated exercise. It is connected to overall financial well-being and developing good financial habits. Through MyFi Guide, we will help financial professionals take personalization at scale beyond investments to the financial goal level.”