68. Asesh Sarkar Plays The Long Money Game

This week, I speak to Asesh Sarkar, Global CEO and co-founder of Salary Finance, a fast-growing FinTech platform working to improve the financial health of employees in the UK and US.

Asesh was born in the UK to immigrant parents, who had no support and little money. Just as he had seen his parents toil to provide for the family growing up, Asesh also had to overcome his lack of academic ability by working extra hard.

Pursuing the career that suited him, as opposed to what his parents originally suggested he should do, led to a decade in finance and consulting, before eventually becoming the youngest ever partner at PA Consulting. From there he took a leap into the unknown to become a social impact entrepreneur, founding breakthrough FinTech platform, Salary Finance, in 2015.

A great episode with some great takeaways, especially for those with self-limiting beliefs about careers and money who have an entrepreneurial vision.

Bonus: I also unpick some of the latest money statistics and give you my take on what they all mean for your financial wellbeing.

Episode Transcript

0:05
Hello, and welcome to the real money stories podcast. I'm Jason Butler. And I invite you to join me as I have intimate money conversations with people from all walks of life. Whether you're just starting out on your money journey, or well down the track, there's bound to be something you can learn from these stories about taking more control of your money, so you worry less, and enjoy life more. Real Money stories is sponsored by Vanguard, bringing value to 30 million investors worldwide. Visit Vanguard investor.co.uk for more details. And remember, the value of investments can go down, as well as up and you may get back less than you invest in. Hello, Jason here. And thanks for joining me for another edition of real money stories. Got a good interview this week for you with a very interesting guy called Asesh Sarker. He runs a fintech, which, in fact, I have an involvement with. Some very interesting insights there, which we'll get to shortly. But before this week's interview, I just wanted to go through some money statistics. Now, before you glaze over or switch off and think, Oh, God, what's he talking about? these statistics might help you make better money decisions. Every month The Money Charity puts together a whole series of statistics that relate to personal finance in the UK. If you're not in the UK, then I'm sure you can get similar statistics wherever you live. But in any case, this will give you good insights, even if you don't live in the UK. Now, I've takem a look at some of their headline statistics, and I'm going to give you my take on them.

Now the first one is credit card balances. In the year to November 2020, in the UK, total outstanding credit card balances reduced by 17.8%. That's a tremendous amount, bearing in mind that credit card balances tend to go up every year. That is amazing. And on the flip side that in the third quarter of 2020, UK households saved an average of 16.5% of their post tax income, and that income could have included state benefits. That's incredible, isn't it? So we've been reducing credit cards, and we've been building up more savings. No I know there are a lot of people in vulnerable low income households that are really having it very difficult time at the moment, but for those who are in work and still earning money, because temptations and opportunity to spend money on fun and non essentials has been much less during COVID, it shows what can be done when you get control of your spending. Now, obviously, my concern is that as soon as we get some easing of lockdown and people can get out to bars and stuff, or on holiday or whatever some people might tell themselves "you know, I deserve it". And they'll rush out and start wasting money and revert to their old habits or even worse, because they've been starved of the ability to spend money on fun. So I think the big take away from that is that we know it can be done. People can reduce their non mortgage debt, and they can save more. And so I think hopefully, one good thing that comes out of the Coronavirus situation is that we are all a little bit more mindful that we can pay ourselves first and build up resilience and build up savings and avoid debt. Because then you can win every day with your money. Now on the flip side, 8.9 million people borrowed more due to Coronavirus by December 2020. So although many saw their credit card balances going down and were saving more, there was a significant group of people who actually had to borrow more. So that's a bit worrying. And then of course there was 418,000 more people unemployed than the previous year. But that probably is masked by the fact there's lots of people on furlough still, so that that figure could well go up. So there's two stories here. There's there's a group of people who are getting ahead financially, but they are vulnerable to spending when lock down eases and there are those who were already vulnerable going into the Coronavirus situation. And it was the straw that broke the camel's back. This has put them in a more precarious situation.

Now, the average mortgage rate as at November 2020, was 2.12%. Now, being an average, some people were paying a lot more than that, perhaps with poor credit scores or very low equity in their property.

And Some people are paying even less than that. So borrowing is cheap, but it doesn't necessarily mean you should be borrowing as much as you can. What it does mean is you could probably use the low interest rates to get rid of the mortgage quicker, because even at 2%, for a 40% taxpayer that's a return of over 3.3% , and a basic rate, taxpayer it's 2.5% return, risk free tax free. I've always been a big fan of overpaying the mortgage. HM land registry says that the first time buyer average house price was 209,163 pounds to November 2020. That's up 7.3% in a year, or 1.2% in a month. But that doesn't necessarily mean that's going to continue. And it does worry me, because first time buyers, normally have much lower deposits, they're less sophisticated, they're often early in their careers. So I'm a bit worried if that is being an artificial sort of push or bump, because we've got the stamp duty holiday, and people are rushing to buy before the end of March. So just tread carefully with that if you are thinking of buying.

Now, the Office of National Statistics shows that private rented sector rents went up by 1.4% for 12 months to the end of December 2020. But that masks the fact that in the last three or four months rents, starting in Central London and starting to happen in all the major UK cities have actually been falling. In fact, I think in London, in some areas, it's fallen 15%. But I think the average fall across the country in the last three or four months has been somewhere between two to 6%. So that yearly rental figure will eventually start to change and possibly become negative, once these these recent falls come into it. So if you are thinking of renting a property, drive a hard bargain, because the trend is in your favour, if you're looking to rent out property, tenant quality is really important, be very careful, because you know, it's very difficult to remove people from a property at present if they don't pay. perhaps ask for more up front.

And just a few other statistics, the average interest rate for savings accounts to December last year was 0.06%. So basically, your money's going backwards, because consumer price inflation to December 2020, was 0.6% for the year. So unless you're getting 0.6% interest over the year, your savings money can buy less. Now, as I explained, when it comes to the emergency fund you don't really need to fuss too much about the interest rate, but it's still nice to get a return. But if you've got money you're holding for two, three years, say your saving for a house purchase and you probably can afford to take a notice account or shop around and try and get the highest rate you can because that will make a difference to you at least, at least in the short term. But obviously, for very long term money, cash is not a great home, as we can see you're losing money every single year relative to inflation. So you might need to look at your investment strategy. But what is good news here is that the three months to November 2020, regular pay in the UK went up by 3.6%. So with low inflation, and wages going up in real terms relative to inflation, that's good. Now that probably will feed through into higher price inflation in the future. So that might have implications. But I think really what all those stat say is that, we can start to see trends here. We need to make our ourselves resilient, we need to make sure that we can deliver value continuously and be earning a good living, if we're not financially independent. We need to have emergency funds so we don't fall back on debt. If we've got debt, we need to get rid of it quickly. These are low interest rates. So this is the time to sort of fix your roof when the sun is shining as it were. And if you're in work, then your wages are increasing in real terms. But the outlook for property is a bit uncertain. So good. Okay, that's me finished. I hope you enjoy this week's interview. It's with a very interesting man who gave up a well paid corporate job to turn an idea that came from a real life money experience that was close to home, into a real business that is helping people help themselves.

Hello, thanks for joining me again on another edition of real money stories. I'm your host Jason Butler. And today I'm joined by Asesh Sarkar that thanks for joining this session before we get into your backstory, which is I've heard bits of it over the last few years and very interesting and can just tell everyone, you know, what do you do for your, for your day job?

9:26
Yeah, it was my day job is the co founder and global CEO, finance and finance is what we call a financial wellness platform. So we work with companies about 500 companies in the UK and the US and we provide their employees with a whole series of financial wellness employee benefits.

9:46
And I should just full disclosure for the last two and a half years for all of my sins. I've been the head of financial education at salary finance, so so I'm the I'm the one that is responsible for sort of doing the webinars and the live events and creating a lot of the material that people See and engage with. So I'm one of the reasons that I got involved with salary finance, because I met a session for what an interesting character, and he will tell you a bit of a bit of his story in a minute. And I thought to myself, look, you know, I'm not keen on debt, as you know, most people who read my stuff, but sometimes we have to use that, okay, as a stepping stone. And one of the things I liked about salary finance is that they see that as a kind of stepping stone to other things. So they're not a one trick pony debt is just part of their portfolio. And they are genuinely trying to help people be good to themselves by making things easier in the workplace. So that's just a bit of disclosure there just that I'd made that clear. Right, so Asesh now. You've that your surname sounds like your heritage comes from far away. Tell us a little bit more about your upbringing.

10:50
Yeah, as I said, My parents are kind of first generation of migrants. So they both came over from India. And I was born here. And actually, my name says, and my first name means never ending in Bengali. And my second name means government. So I really should have been in politics. in government, the last thing is my politics. The but yeah, but my parents kind of indicated his country. Before before I was an I was worked incredibly hard. Today, I guess I can afford me and my brother opportunities or whoever they got any kind of education. And but yeah, it could have been very much but I came to this country and the things I've learned about money has been for me know, many good practices and much better practices they had. I wanted to do it today.

11:38
Yeah. Interesting. So the Bengali background, that's is that northern in India? Is that right?

11:44
That is East?

11:46
Okay, Eastern. Yeah. Okay. So, yeah, but just interesting. Well, I mean, what an amazing decision to come all that way to a rainy, cold, little country like UK, when what, in the must have had some big impetus? They must have had a lot of motivation? And what what brought them over? Are you aware? Have you ever found out from your parents?

12:05
Yeah, pretty much as it was, my dad that came kind of came over first, as I think, you know, when you live in the UK, and other, you know, born and brought up here, you know, people love to complain. But the reality is, and you know, I had the good fortune to travel to those places in the world. And actually, I never really go to another place and think, you know, what I would love to live, I love to visit I love to see I enjoy the place whenever you I'd love to kind of live there. But it's actually the UK is just a great place here that the climate is not it doesn't have extremes, okay. It's not, you know, California suddenly all the time, but it doesn't have you know, there is of course, inequality, but in general, the average person, it's like a life, and there's a great health system, there's a great education system. So there's all these reasons that particularly my parents, generation UK was a really inspiring place to be and my dad in particular, worked incredibly, you know, from a humble background and worked incredibly hard to to allow him to kind of come over to the UK and you know, kind of really kind of set up into to see if he could make a life for himself and and then his family family there.

13:12
So what was it like, your early experiences of growing up? What sort of lifestyle what what sort of money messages did you pick up and the whole role of work and that sort of stuff?

13:24
Absolutely. So I would say for lots of kind of first generation migrants, but a particular time where my parents came in, and the money was a challenge because you know, you come to the country with nothing. And then you also have no you know, other people to fall back on your your Indian, you know, you're on your own in the country making your way. And so, you know, you're working out to get your first job, you're working out how the system works, you're learning the language, all of those, all of those things. This is within that kind of context. I was born in a very loving family. But money was always a challenge. And, you know, the other kind of real fixing for me is, you know, I would say I had a lot of pressure when it came to education, as my parents always saw education as the key to kind of giving you know, a kind of a great a great future. So yeah, can I say a loving family money was always in short supply and your real focus and education

14:18
its do see, as you know, I've interviewed God knows how many people over the years but in real money stores must be 100 people and you do send to find that in first and certainly, certainly first and sometimes second generation immigrant families, this focus on education is a really big thing, isn't it? We're seeing Indian and Chinese children outperforming London than indigenous white working class particularly boys so so do that, that focus on wanting to get ahead of education that was drummed into a young age, right as social mobility.

14:51
Yeah, very much and at the time, it was very annoying. And so you know, whilst I was very hard, you know, my friends would be out. More fun things. But as I look at it now, I mean, I was never naturally academic. So I to work incredibly hard to kind of get good grades, and have I not put into work, I wouldn't have got it and then actually each to get to where I am today, we're in decent position, you know, everything really counts, I need to get good Jesus is the only good good evils then get to a good university. I went to work, which was an environment, which has been huge, really, it was kind of a middle class kind of environment. And so you know, that, you know, I would say I was born in a city, so to speak very differently, that kind of in a different world. I just scraped it to what worried about that, then that meant I got a good, you know, good graduate job. And then I could kind of progress from there. So yeah, education is really kind of helps, like you say, kind of give me kind of, you know, social mobility.

15:49
and and did you ever when you were a child, when you're quite young, did you ever do jobs for pocket money? Or can you remember that sort of work and money thing? Or was it or you just had to, I interviewed a guy who's got African heritage, he said, we just did chores around the house, because if you didn't, you'd know about it, there was no pocket money.

16:10
I actually loved love today, I got a love way. But as young as was young, you know, as soon as I'm 16, I think he was 16. And I was 17. When he get up I I worked a co op was my first job. And I remember my job at Co Op was probably the worst job you have your supermarket, which is you go into a section and I'll you completely scripted to work out if there is anything there where they're kind of used by day has passed. So you can spend four hours and achieve nothing because there's nothing there. And a good day would be when you found like contend to be at today. So I did that. And then my kind of dad was a kind of a restauranteur. And then say I would always end down always with limited evenings. And occasionally I would kind of help him as well, which I really enjoyed it kind of enjoyed the interaction, people enjoyed spending time with my dad, and my dad passed away when I was about 17 to 18. And so it wasn't for a huge amount of time, but it is really, really good. And there are Yeah, there was a kind of fun, fun time and then customers award to me. So you can probably tell like, I am close to 40 that look relatively young. And you can imagine when I was 16, I looked even younger. And so people were thinking is this like child labour?

17:28
And I know, you touched on this before, and I was aware of that you'd lost your father when he was 1617. But what did you in those last couple of years before he passed away? And you were spending time in the restaurant and observing him? What did you learn about money values that you observed in him, because it's what we observe in our parents as opposed to what they say, right?

17:47
So what was really interesting for me is the differences in approach that my mom and dad had. And then you know, none of them both equally bad, but they had different approaches. Naturally, you know, more inclined to like my dad, but as my mum, you know, kind of, you know, kind of had various jobs when she came into the UK. But then really actually, you know, when I was younger, when I was, you know, maybe 11, you know, she would take me to her college in the evening. So she could get GCSEs in English and then a level. And so I was like on the bus with her do my homework alongside that. And then she got herself to a position where she got a job in a school. And then and then we have like a stable kind of stable income. And then that was the kind of bedrock, my dad came to the UK and then he had kind of been a good year kind of, you know, engineering type jobs, but he wanted to be an entrepreneur. And then you know, and then say he got into business now I knew I wouldn't say for my dad, it's difficult to say but they're probably business was not his forte, you know, I would say there's a liberal kind of as you know, student is kind of who he was just very trusting of people that you shouldn't necessarily be trusting to and as a result, I would say he had a number of bad experiences that kind of kind of wither within that. And so we had a lot of he was like and I would say the kind of unit of stable better my dad we were kind of changed depending on what kind of fortunes of business over over the years at that at that time. And my mom was very much you notice save now and then kind of you know, you know, and and then save and then work out what you spend them and so that she would always have these, you know, you should put money into these things which will mature over time. And you know, before you knew it four years have passed, and suddenly the things that we even know about, we're kind of maturing and have some money, and my dad was the opposite. He was like, you know, well, you know, let's just spend we're going on holiday we'll be doing like, you know what we'll enter and his philosophy was different. It was much more like a kind of a business business person. And you know, as in many households, I guess fortunately my mum had a slightly dominant position in the finances. And so you know, it was it was not easy managing the ups and downs, but overall, overall, it worked. And I'd like to say you know, Have not, you know, I am probably more naturally towards my dad's side in terms of you know, spend first and then work out what you say. The difference is, you know, I was afforded an education in the UK, and I understand how the system works. And I've been able to be more successful as a result in building business in the UK. But yeah, very, very interesting. And as I think about, you know, just kind of good practice in general, a lot from kind of the things you say, and I read, the way my mom does is definitely the one I would I would recommend that they do, they're very impressive.

20:35
And you do get this. So caught me or a contrast in many, many couples, in bringing up children, and I suppose really, it sounds to me, like your dad was the optimistic, you know, let's, let's do it, the world's half full and you know, the sun's gonna rise, and your mom is the realist, as I call it, you know, the sort of water bills got to be paid, and where's the money coming from? So, let's go. Um, so, now, I know, when your dad passed away that that did cause a little bit of that was difficult for your mom, wasn't it financially to do you want to just explain how she navigated that?

21:06
Yeah, so I would say no, it was, you know, financially, you know, I'd say my mom over the years had always, you know, been very, you know, very considered. And so actually, you know, I immediately there was a shock, of course, but But over time, you know, to, to absolute credit, you know, she is now financially free, you know, she's, you know, she gives it a very, very kind of comfortable life. And then if thanks, that, and actually more so than that, you know, when I moved to London, she was able, you know, she put me through education, I went to university, when I went to London, you know, she was able to kind of support me in terms of, you know, helping with the positive things. And not not not a huge amount, but the kind of innovation but still kind of very, very, very meaningful, particularly kind of Where, where, where the start point was, her, you know, her approach has kind of really kind of seen a kind of senior food to the point where, you know, I would say today, she is kind of yet to really own a back, kind of very, very comfortable.

22:08
And what did that what did you take away from that experience of seeing your mom navigate and coming through the other side, obviously, it's terrible to lose a parent at that age. But but but in terms of the financial use one thing, losing your partner or using your father, whatever, it is another thing losing your kind of ability to function, but she seems to navigate What did you learn from that as a money lesson?

22:27
Um, so, you know, I would say, the, you know, playing the long game, basically, essentially, what I, what I've learned, I think, you know, she has never been one to, you know, think about just tomorrow, you know, she will think about no education or pause, you should think about my children. And she'll think about, she just always thinks about the long game. And actually, you know, now, you know, let's say, kind of coming up to 40. And so now, I'm starting to think again, you know, actually, you're just things you know, when you're of a certain age, you really only think about the next year or the next six months, and before you know it, no time passes, you know, so I've been almost 20 years since I finish university. And so it is really, you know, time time catches up, you know, you put money in something which matures, in five years, at the beginning of the five years, you're thinking, you know, what do I want? Why am I doing this? Before, you know, five years just passes and then you know, that has made made a difference, or, you know, pensions or whatever, you're just that ability to see the long term is certainly something I traditionally haven't had. I'm kind of learning about it. But there's something I really admire in my mom, and actually something that I didn't see naturally in a lot of people, so I'm not sure where she got it from. But yeah, that ability to see the long term in your finances is incredibly valuable.

23:51
I was john lennon said, life is what happens when you're busy making other plans, but essentially, life does go on and the long term becomes a short term. And, you know, so it's interesting, you had that in the back of your mind now, you went to uni, did you did you manage to come out of uni? financially whole was a bit of a train wreck. This is a this is the time when we were honest about things.

24:16
I had a lot of fun at university as a fortunate to kind of really find myself there, I would say and then finding yourself. I would say, you know, I came out with, you know, the maximum of student debt, you could you can have government side,

24:38
go big or go home or Is that right?

24:42
I was lucky actually that I went to work, which is not the most expensive place in the world and hadn't gone to London, you know, really worry about whether they even would have been possible. So it's basically like I came out with a level of debt, which was high, but I also went into a top tier job as soon as I came out. So I was, it wasn't a kind of a challenge. And I was kind of completely fine with the government debt. And I could say my mom was also dangerous for me. My my brother's probably older than me. And again, it kind of kind enough to kind of, you know, kind of support me on along the way, too. So yeah, I would say I came up with a lot. But you know, for me, that kind of trade and the trade worked in terms of, you know, good job, though, to get on the back of it. And kind of worked out. Okay.

25:28
Yeah, in fact, I did a blog recently, several weeks ago about the whole university thing. And I think you, you illustrate very, very perfectly, this concept that you either go to uni for a vocation, because it's something you want to do, and you don't expect to earn lots in which case, you won't pay much back. So that's not a problem, because it's really a tax on people's earnings. Or you, you, you get a really high paying job, and you did end up going to talk about in a minute, you're certainly a career trajectory, where you had the ability to earn very good incomes, in which case, you're gonna pay it back pretty quickly. The difficulties in that middle ground, when you don't earn high amount, you've just got it there forever, kind of chipping away at your income. And therefore you have to decide is, you know, is the economic you're doing it for Is it for other issues? Okay, so you've managed to get yourself into a, you say, a top tier job? How did that How did you do that? Did they knock on your door? And say, We need you? Or did you did you really put some shoe leather in or what?

26:24
And since I would say, academically, I had to work incredibly hard to get kind of necessarily grades to progress. And, but what I did work out that I was very, you know, more naturally gifted at problem solving, and kind of business. And so when it came to lots of graduate interviews, they work quite often, you know, places where, you know, the academics were taken, and then you were into, like, kind of group exercises or case studies or besides things, and that's where I could really go all presentations. And that's where I kind of, you know, could could kind of really kind of shine and so, you know, that's fortunate in that, you know, I it is kind of strange, you know, I ever because my brother was five years older than me. And, you know, there are traditional careers that, you know, some Indian people, like, you know, a doctor, a lawyer, an engineer and accountants, my brother was, you know, very much encouraged to be an accountant. And then, you know, 12 years younger, I would follow his path, he basically hated being an accountant for years, and then he was saying, you know, you know, maybe be an accountant, you know, and he worked for a firm. And he said that these management consultants, they don't even have any qualifications, they earn more money, and they solve all of these incredible problems. I wish had been a management consultant. And I was like, wait, okay, I'm not gonna go down the path of being accountant, I was gonna be mad, because so often and so, strangely, strangely, you know, when I was eight, you know, because my brother told me, I knew what a magic consultant was, then I can work out what actually like project based work, I like problem solving I business, since it's a for me, I kind of really good, you know, I chose a course that would help me with them. So I became a management consultant. And, and I kind of really kind of really kind of excelled in it, as I kind of, you know, obviously, kind of companies that would come on to campus kind of knew who the toxic companies were. And I kind of really geared everything that I was doing to kind of get into one of those, one of those organisations. And then it's very fortunate that, you know, that we played to my skill set, like, you know, it's, I've been awful, my wife is a surgeon, and then he or she has an innate ability to just memorise lots of stuff,or for short term memory. And so you know, for me, that type of job is all when I consider law for a while, I just can't remember what I need to remember when it comes to competing for my forte, and I was fortunate to find a query, which can be really kind of really pulled out.

28:58
So you learn a model or an approach or a framework, which you could then apply to given scenarios, and you'd like to having to sort of work the jigsaw out, right. Okay. That's an important point. Because here's the other thing is finding out what you innately are good, as opposed to what your parents think you should be doing, or what society says or what someone down the road says, or what your mates doing or other people are doing is not the issue. Because if you're doing a job that's not either that you don't enjoy, or that doesn't concur with your innate abilities and desires and interests, then it's going to be difficult. But I think the other point is, you made the point about working in the co op, we sometimes do unglamorous jobs on our way to the to the Golden uplines. Right. So so in case of sometimes we can't always do the job we like but if we can move nearer to it, that's good. I hope you never hear in our people. I love what I do for salary finance, and I said I probably do it for free. But I don't don't tell a sash that but that's the point is that I love what I do. And it doesn't feel like work. Although I do like getting paid. Thanks. So let's move on then. So when you got your job, but there's so many consultant? Did you experience a rapid increase in salary? Or was it a sort of a bonus basis ship system? or How did it work? And did you have? Did you get paid for taking more exams? Or was it just based on delivery? or How did it work?

30:15
Yes, I would say, you know, consultants, lawyers, and yeah, we know, all bad kids, you kind of go in on the kind of toxic level, what kind of graduates every now and then. So for me, kind of relative to where I'd grown up there and say what, you know, it was a lot of money, like it was, you know, more, yeah, more, more more than Yeah, yeah, I ordinarily would have been kind of going to use you. And so it was definitely a kind of a good start. And again, it kind of good in terms of what I've been used to, and so on. And I guess at that time, you don't know the cost of living, and then you haven't cut your lifestyle to fit your income yet. So it was very good. And then obviously, when you moved to London, you kind of know, you understand there's two sides to two sides of the coin. And then progression was really, you know, there are five ranks, you know, from analysts where you start leading up to partner, and then the more kind of, you know, the better job you do for clients. And you know, the high you kind of go up the ranks really, and, and I was fortunate to kind of climb the ranks pretty, pretty quickly and say, where, within about 11 years, I was a partner, and opportunities as well.

31:26
What are you the youngest partner they've ever had? Is that right? In your firm?

31:29
That's right. Yeah.

31:30
Yeah. I thought I'd say that. Yeah. Because you were the youngest money. So you must have done something. Right. So here's an interesting takeaway there. For anyone listening who's younger, you said that you weren't naturally academic, you said it didn't naturally come easy to share to work hard. But here's the thing, whether you've got the intelligence or the measurability, working hard, will always always pay off. And you You are an example of that. So well done to you. And that's a great I love to share that to young people. So you went through the ranks? And then you left management consulting, didn't you? What Why? Why did you decide to leave the world of have you know, that lovely earnings or status or the other nice chair Didn't your executive toys? What What, what, why? What possessed you to want to give it all up?

32:10
And clearly says that as a management consultant, actually, I was kind of progressing through the ranks of doing really interesting work. And you know, it was all good. But essentially, what I was doing is working with big corporates, typically big our big banks, and grantees in big banks, no one really has enormous influence, because they're too big, you know, they are just too too big. They are machines. So you know, for me, what you're doing is somewhat playing politics and some are playing a game as in, you know, there are things to get done, you work through, and you can never really change out from a bank, it's just too too big. And so whilst, you know, my clients, why should work I would do, you know, had clear value to it, it was well regarded as working great people, in many, many ways. I didn't think I was doing real business because it was just on to bigger scale to really kind of really, really influence. And so I got to the stage where I become a partner, they kind of worked out well. And also kind of similar to a dad, you know, I had always had this burning desire to be an entrepreneur, that always event desire to be an entrepreneur. And, and, you know, I love the Silicon Valley Tech stories, I love, you know, hearing the stories of successful entrepreneurs, and problem solving. So so you know, and so, I get to kind of, you know, once it got to a point where they see our two paths, one is I could continue as a partner and have incredibly good job security. And, you know, did you do very well, all I could work and say, Look, I've done pretty well so far, I take your risk and try to be tried to be a BBB entrepreneur. And, and, and then we went when I was making that decision, I had one child, another child under way a wife, and quite an expensive lifestyle at that at that stage. And so an intellectual really question came to me then is Okay, so, you know, am I going to, you know, the next day when my dad had mixed emotions, when it came to business, am I going to leave a stable career, and actually, you know, that the CEO of the consulting firm I was in when I told him this, and then he was like, Look, if you can look at your children in the eye and do this, then absolutely go for it. And so it was a really kind of big moment around, you know, whether we make this move or not, and go from something very mapped out and, you know, an incredibly privileged fortunate position or take complete, they're taking a big risk. And I chose to take a risk for two or three reasons. One is I had an idea that I was really passionate about, and you know, to is in making the move, I was able to make the move and still not not as high as income. Before but enough that I knew I could, you know, give an adequate income to my, to my family. And in a three, the thing I've really learned is I was really starting to enjoy learning. You know, when I was at school, college university, I never really enjoyed learning, it was just memorising things as best I could to pass an exam. And I felt lucky when it comes to consulting, you know, there was only so much more I was going to learn, because I thought, if I could be an entrepreneur, I would be learning something new. And I wanted to be at the kind of top of the game. So I thought for those three reasons. And get financial backing for an idea I had for the series, as it kind of made me take kind of take the leap five, five and a half years ago.

35:45
So what you really said was what I've got to lose, and what I've got to gain, and you took the view, if I don't do it now, I never will. Now look, just tell us, this is a fantastic story about where the idea came from, because there's a fantastic money story in that. So do you want to just just share that with us?

36:01
Yeah, definitely. So, you know, two to two things happened in parallel. This is one is, you know, the whole time I was in consulting was always, you know, trying to think of business ideas. In your head, you know, yeah, when I got really interested in is just a concept of credit, because I worked in banks and loans and payday loans and credit cards and so on. And then it just kind of struck me that when it comes to credit, just struck me that different people pay different prices. And so it just struck me that, you know, I was paying 5% on loans I had, but I knew, you know, some banks will charge up to, you know, 25 30%, some payday lenders would retried and so it just seemed strange that, you know, there was no good in the world that I was aware of, or like, it's not any good. I can pick a sandwich table car, it always costs everyone the same mouth apart from money, which could be so so different. And again, kind of Yeah, and it says, I always sing around, okay, you know, can we make, you know, money further within it. Also, what really struck me working in banks is my view, I did not come across any bad actors, I did not come across, you know, these bad bankers that we're trying to kind of, you know, really screw society. And so just seeing those really kind of strange dichotomy people not necessarily trying to do bad that I have certainly come across, but equally, this real strange world where the price of money is so different to different people. And we're gonna make a personal experience, which is like, yeah, I have no children. We have a nanny. That kind of helps us. And, you know, she she earns, you know, she was earning an average in the UK, but a lot less than I was earning. And it just seems strange to me, that she was how she was paying and then just couldn't work out. Does she always seem to be stressed about money and just couldn't work out why she was stressed given, you know, teachers getting paid quite well. And then it became clear that she had debts. And it became clear that those deaths were extortionately priced. And so, you know, she had some things which were 40 50% and some things were true. 100%. And so they, you know, as a successful consultant working in banking and banks, I thought I needed a system, well, I say, Well, why don't I just help you get a loan. And eventually, she just couldn't, she just didn't have a credit score should have been in the country longer, she'd have a credit score high enough to do and she was getting into this cyclical problem, we would pay her a high proportion of income would go up on paying off high interest debt, there was not enough left for her, she would then Miss payments, and then the cycle kind of cycle facilities. And it just seemed incredibly unfair to me that I was paying 5%, he worked just as hard if not harder, either way to actually be pretty active, and, and was having this kind of issue. And so for me, this whole area was quite interesting. And so what I had done for her is, I would say, look, now, let me just pay off your debt for you, I'll give you an employee loan, and you repay me through you know, payroll, essentially, I'll just take the money off, you're paying each pay period. And it really worked for her No, she was saving about 100 pounds each month, and in excess interest. And she was a lot less stressed, she felt in control, she took that opportunity to saw her finances out, she was grateful to us and you know, my wife and I felt good about ourselves. So we had really helped someone and in a quite a profound way, I could just look at it and see that she was a changed shape person was quite small, small thing. And I could see this, you know, seemingly simple employee loan had really helped her. And then a lot of work in banks, I could understand actually, well, what I've done is taking a risk and so rather than pricing the risk, I can help her and then and then so the idea was okay, you know, help my nanny as one person, you know, can we do this on a much bigger scale down and that's really one of the stories which kind of led to the kind of you know, the business that business I went today.

39:48
And just before we go into that, so there were three things that I'm really picking on I love hearing the story I never get bored of it is first and foremost. You didn't know about why she was so stressed and worried. Right? Because obviously you weren't aware, right? Secondly, she was working hard, but she just couldn't get ahead. Because everything was going out the door. She just didn't she couldn't breathe almost like sort of being you're trying to get above water right paycheck to paycheck. And thirdly, is that once you didn't, you didn't, you didn't. You were enabling, you are helping her help herself, you weren't writing depths off, you were helping to help herself, but you were doing it in a way that gave her a chance to get ahead and actually get in and build her own confidence and self esteem. So that's wonderful. So, so the the idea behind what is now salary finance, I mean, when you when you presented the idea to people, did they did they think you were cracked or not? So you can't possibly do this? Or if it could have been done, it would have been done? I mean, what happened?

40:46
All of those, all of those things? So no, I would say, you know, I was lucky coming to the table, because I had a good credible background at that time. But equally, I love still very young. And so you know, I was trying to raise money on an idea, which was okay, you know, I was an employee of one person, I could help her, let's offer this to employers across the country. So, you know, if you are a supermarket, for example, lots of employees will be in the same position that we taking high pressure steps, will we finance the debt of those employees will collect the repayments on payroll, will save them money in doing so, which will essentially give them an effective pay rise. And then we'll keep payroll going to help them build kind of build build savings. And so, so what went on out pitch? Absolutely, you know, kind of people would say, Yeah, no, no way any company is going to sign up to this too risky. You've never run a business before we had all you've really done is kind of advise advise others. You know, there are many people that have lived through credit crisis before. And so you just don't know where the credit risk will be. Since they're kind of locked. Yeah, absolutely kind of lots of lots of resistance. Until I would say I met, you know, the investor, who really invested in us and still with us today, kind of blemish outcrop where they were actually much more about people than in there, they were happy to back me that their view was okay, we don't know if this idea will work. But there's probably something here, and let's try and build this together. So they were much more prepared to say, we have a great network of companies that we know, sounds like a good idea, let's convince one of them to do it. Let's see if it works in so let's take it take it from there. That's quite unusual in the UK. So again, I've been fortunate to kind of land across, kind of vanish apart, and they and they call themselves venture builders. And so you know, not an opportunity to build something with them. And again, that will come through your competition, because you know, it's my first time building a business. And so yes, it's a lot lots of barriers. But we're very fortunate to have found better chocolate to kind of really yet kind of get that get that breakthrough.

42:57
And what would you say just looking back over the last five and a half years of so you know, you've you took that mad cat decision to go on your own, you found someone who backed your crazy idea. It's obviously not going in a straight line, as we know, because that's business. What have you learned about money over the last five years have been involved in this very, very consumer facing business and working with some of the very biggest employers and HR people and everything, you know, what, what have you learned about the whole role of money?

43:28
Absolutely. So yes, it says today, because, you know, you know, we work with 550 companies, they employ 3.5 million people, that includes 15% of the footsie 108 of the big 10 supermarkets wanting to HS first a police force, the list goes on across the UK, across all 50 states in the US, we offer loan savings, education and balances, check insurances, we've got to kind of have a decent decent scale. But the one thing I have learned is that and now I also have the, you know, I work together, we blend almost half a billion pounds. And so you know, we have you know, we we work, you know, really, I would say we have investors or Goldman Sachs, legal in general, but I shall call virgin mainly, we operate at a pretty kind of meaningful kind of kind of scale. And then we interact lots of people in this space, the one thing I have learned is, the majority of the people that work in finance, do not understand the financial realities. For the average person, they operate very much at macro numbers. And they'll use very broad things and everyone's looking for the Holy Grail. And then there is in my view, no Holy Grail. And what there is, is many people with many different situations, many different challenges, and you need a whole suite of education tools, products, to really, really do that. And so for me, you know, as an example, As nanny was a very real example, you portrayed it excellently, you know, people going into university and those challenges you mentioned what we'll get to. So for me what I really needed outside of salary finance, he also chaired a charity called Milan, which is a youth money, charity. And they they focus really on vulnerable children quite often in care going into the real world where they need to learn about money to not make many mistakes. And so for me, what I've always really tried to do is focus on understanding you obviously kindness and millions of people around you level, but as much as I can about the realities for real people, and then how you how you solve that, as opposed to lots of complex stats and surveys. And as we do all of that stuff, as well. But I learned most from that. And actually, one of the things I love looking at most is the credit cards are some of our customers, because it just tells you incredible things. And so, you know, it could be a supermarket client, Alaska when their credit reports we send to me, and you know, I say, well, this person has no five deaths they are missing payments on. And so, you know, what is their mental state up? Like when they come to to work? How do they get out of it? How can we help. And so for me, the biggest thing I've learned is, it doesn't matter what scale you get to, unless you really, really focus on the micro issues of people, very real people, and actually getting my kind of background really helps it because I've seen lots of different sides from my mum being great and money, but having limited money, you know, experiences with my dad and the ups and downs of business, you know, through to me being you know, say a young professional in kind of London and all these, you know, my wife, and he works the NHS and seeing some experiences there. So yeah, for me, what I love, learning about most is individually experiences and then using that to kind of aggregate up rather than starting with lots of data and working working down.

47:02
And one of the things I love about salary finance, they have great line called for people not numbers, because behind every, every every person who buys a financial product, or everyone who attends a webinar or any of that there's real people with real issues with real temptations, who are who, you know, get tired and get grumpy, they get tempted. They lose discipline with that we're humans, we're not built to be good with money, but we can learn to be good with money and we can help ourselves be better. So is there anything you want to leave us with before you go up is very gracious of you to spend some time with us because I know you're busy guy. Is there anything you want to leave us with? Before you go? Any any last piece of nugget that you want to share?

47:43
The last piece of nugget and look, I would just say that for people that are managing their own finances, like I say, take a long term view I can't profess to do myself but I've definitely seen my mother the master in this and then Henry does pay off in the years really do do flow.

48:02
Good. Well, thanks for your time. Well watch your interest salary finance, is trying to try to do its bit one customer at a time. So appreciate you being on Asesh Sarkar. Thank you for your time.

Did you enjoy that? I did. He's a great Asesh. Very unassuming, very humble. He's a very smart guy. But he really underplays that. And what was really interesting, I thought was that he made that point that the UK is a great place to live. So whether you live in the UK, and you're a bit of a whinger, and you think the grass is greener on the other side, or you don't live in the UK, and perhaps you're wondering about your own country, I think it's so easy for us not to see the things that are good about life in front of us. That's an interesting one. And he made the point that he was born in the UK to immigrant parents, but they had no support, they had no money. So they had to work really hard. And he also had to overcome his lack of academic ability by working extra hard. And he had to navigate the different money styles of his parents, which is interesting. But what was incredible was how his mum navigated the loss of his father when he was in his late teens, and she has now become very financially astute through hard work and discipline, which is great. And I love that idea that he said that he had lots of fun at university and really found himself and finding yourself costs a lot of money. Yeah, absolutely. But he also pursued the career that suited him as opposed to what his parents originally suggested he should do. He didn't want to be a doctor or lawyer. He wanted to become a management consultant because that suited him. So it's very important to try and find what suits you and even if you're not in the right career or job now, perhaps you can change path, perhaps Coronavirus, has given you an opportunity to rethink what you do for a living. The past doesn't necessarily have to equal the future. And wasn't he brave to give up that very well paid partnership in the management consultancy firm to start a completely brand business. I know it was backed by a venture capital firm, but the point is he had an idea that he believed in. They paid him enough salary to just to get by, but not be lavish. And he thought he'd able to look his children in the eye in the future and say he had a go. And his big principle there is, is just helping lots of people who often do struggle day to day to help them be better themselves. What a great idea. So what a lovely interview really enjoyed it. Nice Guy, do check them out salary finance, so just disclosure, I am head of financial education there on a part time basis. And I am very privileged to get a chance to give webinars and talks and create content for their customers. And what I do find from that work is that most of those people that I speak to and I interact with, they all they want to feel a bit more confident, a bit more capable, and to know that they're on the right path. So that's me another episode in the can. That's us done. I'll see you again next week. Thanks for listening.

Thanks for listening to real money stories with me, Jason Butler. If you like what you hear, please do tell your friends. And more importantly, please rate us on your preferred podcast app, because it really does help us get the message out there. So until next time, good luck with your money journey. Real Money stories is sponsored by Vanguard bringing value to 30 million investors worldwide. Visit Vanguard investor.co.uk for more details. The value of investments can go down as well as up and you may get back less than you invested

Transcribed by https://otter.ai