By Ben Lucas
ENCOURAGING younger people to invest their hard-earned cash is not easy in the current economic climate, the chief executive of AJ Bell has said, adding that the recent launch of its investment app Dodl, which is aimed at younger investors, took place at a less than ideal time.
Younger generations are seeing a “real squeeze” in their finances, leaving them with less money to invest each month, chief executive Michael Summersgill told the Financial Times.
Summersgill also said that the firm’s new app Dodl, which launched in April, arrived too late with the UK now gripped by a cost-of-living crisis.
“Maybe if we had made some… decisions more quickly four years ago we would have launched into that boom period, and that would have been lovely. But no, we launched it after. It’s still a great product, but it is now a tough sale,” Summersgill told the Financial Times.
He added, however, that he was still confident that “in five years’ time [Dodl] will be in a great place”.
Summersgill also wants to continue the firm’s push for younger investors and work to change the image of the “grey, dull, impenetrable world” of investing.
Summersgill recently took over as CEO from founder Andy Bell.
Bell was set to take a board seat at the firm, but the Financial Conduct Authority blocked the plans citing the need for a clear distinction between executive and non-executive roles at the firm.
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