Summarize

Community platforms have become unalienable part of our lives. We share services, find lenders and borrowers, make group investments via different online platform solutions. ArtLaw.club has talked to Mr.Nicolas Delorme, co-CEO of Planet of Finance, on finding a suitable wealth management service provider and investing with passion or precise analysis.

- Dear Mr.Delorme, what is the main idea of Planet of finance?

Planet of finance runs a community platform that offers private investors the opportunity to search, select and meet wealth management service providers from all over the world.

- How can it help a private investor?

Wealthy clients are not always satisfied with their financial service providers (hidden costs, slow reactivity, frequent changes of relationship managers, poor performance, etc). When it comes to selecting a trustworthy financial advisor, Google brings more confusion than clarity. The search engine gets thousands of results but doesn't find any website that gathers, localises, describes and rates wealth management professionals on a worldwide scale.

Planet of finance provides a simple and fast way to search, select and meet with qualified finance professionals around the world.

- Can it be equally suitable for potential and seasoned investor?

Problems faced by investors, whether they are experienced or not, remain the same, which are lack of transparency, difficulty in identifying the most suitable advisor, and an opaque industry.

The platform helps and has helped investors having savings from USD 10,000 to several tens of millions of dollars to find the most suitable and qualified advisor to invest and manage their wealth.

As of today, thousands of investors with a total portfolio of USD 1 Billion have gone through Planet of finance to find a new advisor.

- How do you attract financial professionals?

Our value proposition to qualified finance professionals is to help them find new clients, speed their client onboarding process and promote their business.

On top of digital marketing which helps us to attract new professionals, we can also count on our 23 Country managers located in the biggest financial centers around the world to grow our community in their respective jurisdictions and help local members.  

- Do you check the reliability of the financial professionals before they join your network?

In order to be able to chat to private clients, professional members must have a license that allows them to operate in the jurisdiction they are registered in. Planet of finance checks each license in order to grant finance professionals access to its services.

Private investors are also checked individually by our team.

Additionally, private investors are also invited to go through our RoboComplianceOfficer to get their full KYC completed online. Once done, they can share this information with professionals they would like to start a relationship with.  

- You are not a non-profit initiative, are you? What is the amount of your commission for users (investors and finance professionals)?

Private investors can use our website for free. Professionals can register and be listed freely but need to pay a monthly membership of 99€ to be able to get in touch with potential new clients through the platform.

- What is impact investing? How does it differ from other types of investing?

Sustainable investing or socially responsible investing (SRI) is an investment strategy that is considered socially responsible thanks to the way the company is conducting its business. It focuses on considering both financial gain and social or environmental impact, whilst also delivering a positive change. Companies that fit the bill here might be engaged in renewable energy, natural resources, sustainable agriculture, human rights and social justice... to name just a few. Check out our eBook for more information: https://info.planetoffinance.com/impact_investing_ebook

- You write a lot about passion investing and have also published an e-book on the topic. Is it your passion and/or core business area?

One of our goals is to inform private investors on trendy thematics in the finance industry. We wrote several E-books on different topics such as Robo-Advisors, Cryptocurrencies, Money Millennials, Passion investing, SRI and more!

- What does in your opinion make a collectible investible? What should a potential investor check before taking a decision on starting investing in collectibles?

What makes a good investment in passion investing? You must love what you buy!

Passion investing is not for the faint-hearted nor is it for an investor looking for a quick return. Passion investing does not produce an income from your ownership of an asset. You will have to hold on to your investment for a long time, sometimes in excess of 10 years, to make a profit when the cost of purchase, the cost of ownership, the cost of selling, and the effect of inflation are taken into consideration.

Taking all of the above into account, you’d better love what you buy or you may have some short nights thinking about your investment!

- Why have you chosen only four types of collectibles for your recent E-book? There were watches, classic cars, wine and art. What about diamonds, coins, philately and phaleristics?

Watches, classic cars, wine and art have been excessively attractive and trendy during the past decade. The value of classic and collectable cars has doubled since 2010, the same pattern for watches. The art world and fine wine have also enjoyed a boom in the last 15 years. The idea with our E-books is to educate and inform investors and savers. We made the choice to focus on the main popular categories in our 1st version but, of course, we will describe more of them in our next Passion Investing E-book!

- Can Planet of finance help in finding advice on passion investments? How does it work?

Of course! Planet of finance lists the major players in the finance industry, including passion investing specialists. If you come to our website and sort advisors by thematic, you will find our passion investing experts. Alternatively, you can download our E-book to find a non-exhaustive list of players in that field.

- Who are the Robo-Advisors? Are they more valuable than human advisors in the field of passion investing? Why?

Robo-advisors are trading without emotions and they do this faster. On average, this is giving equivalent or slightly better results than human asset management. However, in the particular field of Passion investing, prices are mainly driven by emotions hence Robo-advisors are less efficient in this field. Until Artificial Intelligence becomes more developed, human advisors in passion investing will remain the most efficient way to make good decisions.