Claro FAQs
Get answers to your burning questions.
About Claro
Claro is a subscription-based app which aims to make financial coaching accessible to everyone. Launching in early 2021, we’re aiming to empower you to make smarter financial decisions – from setting goals to saving and investing.
Claro provides an impartial and safe space for the conversations about money you might not be comfortable having with family or friends.
Claro’s goal is to empower people to make smarter decisions about their money. We want to inspire a new movement of people who are confident and knowledgable about their finances, so they can achieve their goals and make an impact on the world.
We want to democratise investing, saving and financial planning. We want to break down the barriers that currently exist, and give everyone access to financial expertise.
We also see a world where investment decisions can make the world a better place. We want to make it easier for people to invest in line with their own values, in companies that are making a real difference.
Claro’s mission is to provide the education, support, community and tools to empower people to make smarter financial decisions.
We will help everyone create a personalised financial plan, and provide professional support to motivate people to stick to their plans, reach their goals and develop healthy financial habits.
It is a subscription-based app which aims to make financial coaching accessible to everyone. It’s built around the four pillars of learning, planning, saving & investing, and community. It’s all underpinned by a belief in responsible money management.
Using open banking, Claro allows you to connect all your accounts in one place and see your spending in one view. Using our advanced technology, Claro allows you to see exactly how and where your money is being spent and helps you effectively budget and manage your money.
Alongside the technology, Claro also gives you the option to talk to real human beings – our highly experienced, qualified financial coaches.
Coaches give you access to the latest information and best practise whilst also supporting you to establish healthy financial habits around money and build a plan that is tailored to your unique situation and goals.
If you want to make an impact with their money, Claro allows you to align your personal beliefs and values to saving and investment products. For some this might be an environmentally friendly savings account, for others it might be a clean energy investment. Claro’s market-leading ESG data is easily accessible within the app so you always have the choice of where to save and invest your money and what companies you want to support and those you want to avoid.
The choice is always yours to make.
Unlike Financial Advisors, Claro provides coaching – not advice.
We focus on supporting you so that you can make empowered decisions about what is best for you financially, whilst also giving you the latest tools and technology to do so.
Financial Advisors can often be expensive and typically only want to speak to people who have large sums of money to invest. Within the financial advice industry, advisors typically make their money from a management fee known as Assets Under Management (AUM). This means that in general it is only profitable for financial advisors to work with people with upwards of £100,000 to invest for longer than 5 years.
At Claro, we speak to everyone, regardless of your situation – whether you want to start a simple savings pot, an emergency fund, buy your first house or travel the world. Claro gives you access to the latest saving and investment technology and expertise, regardless of the amount of money you have to save or invest.
Claro helps people make smarter decisions about finances while being accessible for everyone – not just the rich.
Claro’s financial coaches are fully qualified, certified and friendly people who are there to look into your situation, answer your questions and help you plan your future.
A Claro financial coach is just like a personal trainer or football coach – they share their expertise and support you to learn and practise. Just like any coach, they can’t do the work for you (kick the ball or lift the weights) but they can help you build healthy financial habits and support you in making decisions about your money when you’re ready.
Available in your pocket when you need them, Claro coaches help you understand your spending habits and work with you to set your own saving goals and achieve them.
Claro is for anyone who is looking to make smarter financial decisions or achieve a financial goal. This could be starting a savings pot or an emergency fund, saving for a house deposit, starting a family, or generally feeling more in control of their spending.
ESG stands for Environmental, Social, and Corporate Governance. It is a criteria for measuring the sustainability and societal impact of a company. ESG can be used to choose sustainable or socially responsible financial products, and in the future, also understand your spending.
Claro is the first financial planning app that provides an end-to-end journey, helping you to learn, plan, save and invest your money ethically.
We combine human expertise (our financial coaches) with the latest technology to help you plan your finances, grow your money, and stay on track. A lot of existing financial apps only focus on the end stages of the journey – the actual saving and investing. Claro believes the value comes before this, in the planning stage, so it supports you to build an achievable financial plan, as well as giving you access to saving and investment products. We don’t know of any other financial app currently offering this complete journey.
There are a lot of financial apps that are making the world of finance more accessible, but they don’t usually help people understand how to get smarter with their money. Relying on a strong brand image and trust of a ‘robot-algorithm’, these platforms take the ‘do-it-for-me’ approach.
At Claro, we empower you to develop a smart money mindset to reach your goals, and support you with a ‘do-it-with-me’ approach – always there when you need us.
Claro also gives savers and investors the chance to support companies they care about who are making a positive impact on the world, across both the environment and society.
Our platform allows users to learn, plan, save and invest their money ethically.
A money mindset is your unique set of beliefs about money and how it works in the world. The reality is that people who are successful with money think very differently about it than everyone else. They have a ‘smart money’ mindset.
Claro exists to help anyone achieve this for themselves, so they can use this smart money mindset to adopt healthier and smarter financial habits and behaviours.
Money is a powerful enabler of change in the world.
By empowering people to develop a smarter understanding of finance, Claro can help everyone make their money work harder and create real change in their lives.
Claro is not an investment platform. Claro is a financial planning and coaching app that allows you to set your own goals while learning and building your own personalised financial plan.
As part of your complete financial journey, Claro also gives you access to financial products such as saving accounts, ISAs and General Investment Accounts.
Investing is widely misunderstood, and people are often mis-sold the dream of making quick or easy money by existing investing and trading platforms. This encourages people to take excessive uninformed risk. It also often leads to unexpected losses, frustration and distrust of the investment world.
Claro is specifically tailored to support and coach you into making smart money decisions, and understanding which financial products are right for you and your goals.
Using Claro, you can choose to put your money into products that suit your values, risk and return profile.
Claro shows you a variety of cash and investment products.
Our investment portfolios are built around themes such as technology, green energy, British business, American business and a global mix. As well as these themes, Claro gives you an Impact Score for investment funds and companies based on their environmental and societal impact. Armed with this knowledge, you can choose to invest in what matters to you.
Financial Coaching
Financial Coaches inform and empower people to achieve their financial goals and feel confident about their finances.
Whether it’s budgeting, saving, investing, pensions, mortgages or life insurance, your Coach will explain your options clearly, and help you build healthy financial habits.
Financial Coaches won’t make decisions for you, nor do they want to. They’re there to help build your confidence in your own money management.
Claro provides financial coaching, not financial advice.
The main difference is that Financial Advisers are authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) to recommend specific financial products, such as a specific investment fund, savings account or mortgage.
By contrast, Financial Coaches aren’t regulated to do that and don’t necessarily want to, either. A Financial Coach’s goal is to inform and empower you so that you feel confident enough to make your own financial decisions.
There may also be a greater focus on the behavioural and emotional aspects of money when working with a Financial Coach.
Find out more about the difference between Financial Coaches and Financial Advisers.
You can read our Coaches’ bios above to find out more about the qualifications and experience of our individual coaches.
We ensure all Coaches keep their financial knowledge up to date through meeting certain Continuous Professional Development requirements.
Our Coaches do not get paid any commission for recommending any particular investing or saving product via Claro.
Coaches simply get paid for their time, so they are totally neutral and are only interested in your best interests. So you can rest assured that your coaching call is not about selling any products to you – it’s simply to help support you with your decisions.
You can discuss any topics relating to finance with your Coach. For example:
– Budgeting
– Saving
– Investing
– Pensions
– Mortgages
– Insurance
Your coaching session is intentionally flexible so that you can discuss the topics that are most important to you.
When you book your call you will be told who your coach is and provided with some information and a short video about them so you know who you will be meeting. In the meantime, you can meet our coaches here.
We will ask you to complete some questions before the call relating to your personal situation. This will include details of your:
– Income
– Expenses
– Assets (savings, investments, pensions, property)
– Liabilities (any debt, mortgages, loans)
– Your financial goals
This information helps the coach to have some context of your personal situation so that they can prepare for your session. It means that the session can focus on discussing what is important to you rather than spending a lot of time asking you for information.
Your Coach will already have the information you provided ahead of the call, but if there is any other financial information you would like to share with them, please have this to hand.
It might be useful to have at hand:
– Your savings account balances
– Your income and expenses
– Your pension information (total pension pot, pension provider, your current pension contributions)
– Information on any investments you have
If you have any specific questions that you want to ask then write them down before the call to ensure they get answered.
Before the call starts, make sure you have the right Zoom link, which you’ll find in the app and also in your confirmation email. We recommend you use a desktop as the Financial Coach will share resources over the screen. Please ensure you have a good internet connection as well as a quiet and private place to talk.
Your Coach will already have the information you provided ahead of the call, but if there is any other financial information you would like to share with them, please have this to hand.
It might be useful to have at hand:
– Your savings account balances
– Your income and expenses
– Your pension information (total pension pot, pension provider, your current pension contributions)
– Information on any investments you have
If you have any specific questions that you want to ask then write them down before the call to ensure they get answered.
Before the call starts, make sure you have the right Zoom link, which you’ll find in the app and also in your confirmation email. We recommend you use a desktop as the Financial Coach will share resources over the screen. Please ensure you have a good internet connection as well as a quiet and private place to talk.
You decide what actions and next steps you would like to take after the coaching call. You can set these during the call with your Financial Coach, or independently afterwards.
This could be a number of things from doing a detailed budget sheet, to setting up a savings or investments account, or doing more research on a topic.
Whatever the actions may be, a summary of these will be displayed on the app so you can keep track of your progress.
All our coaching sessions are done remotely. It doesn’t matter where in the country you are, you will still be able to access to a Coach to support you.
We hope that in the future when Covid measures ease, we may be able to put on events where you may have the opportunity to meet our Coaches in person.
Yes. Your data is encrypted using bank-level security. For more information see our Privacy Policy.
Yes – you are welcome to have a joint coaching session with your partner.
Yes. We will not share any of your information or details from the call with anybody outside of Claro without your permission. The calls are recorded for training and monitoring purposes.
We do not give tax advice and we are not tax specialists, so there will be limitations on the information we can provide if you have tax-related queries.
