Revealing what really drives people’s financial decisions.

At the heart of every financial decision is a human…

Who’s influenced by both their head and their heart.

Who faces behavioural barriers to taking action.

Who feels the uncertainty, risk and complexity that financial decisions involve.

…and who you need to understand to elevate your business.

As a specialist in financial consumer behaviour and the science of financial wellbeing, I help businesses attract and delight clients by focusing on what really drives them.

Philip Courtenay, Founder of Humans and Money

Photo of Philip Courtenay

What are you focused on right now?

Attracting
new clients

Focus on the triggers and motivations that lead prospects to engage with you.

Delighting
existing clients

Remove friction from your experience and reinforce the value you deliver.

Changing
behaviour

Encourage clients to carry out the actions that will improve their financial wellbeing.

Complying
with regulation

Assess how your experience aligns with the Consumer Duty and the areas you can improve.

Other services

Consulting

Leverage financial consumer behaviour in your business through the S.H.A.P.E. Process™. 

Workshops

Revealing the behavioural principles driving financial consumers and providing you with the tools to elevate your offering.

Speaking

Available to speak on financial consumer behaviour and its impact on marketing, proposition development and client experience.

A scientific approach

Successful change doesn’t happen by accident.

Whether you want to increase engagement with your digital journey, improve financial wellbeing, or increase demand for your offering, you need a structured way to get the outcome we want. 

The five-stage SHAPE Method® does exactly this.

What’s more, the process is modular, so you can see the value of each stage before committing further.

01. Strategy

All too often, businesses try to change behaviour without being specific about what they’re changing. 

Successful projects start by defining a Target Behaviour. What do we want clients, prospects or your team to do differently?

We then pinpoint the Supporting Behaviours. For example, engaging with financial advice or buying an insurance policy involves multiple steps and multiple decision points.

This shows us where the biggest gaps and opportunities lie.

02. Highlight influences

We need to reveal what’s really influencing our decisions and behaviours. But we humans often don’t consciously know why we act in certain ways. Through first-hand behavioural research, reviewing existing literature, we pinpoint the Effort, Emotion and Economic influences we need to address.

03. Apply change

 

This is where it all comes together; applying what we know to improve the behaviour we want. This can involve streamlining a client experience, creating new content, designing a digital journey or optimising the language you use.

The scientific process we use means you’re not doing things based on guesswork.

04. Prove impact

What’s better than predicting something will work? Proving it does.

By carrying out a small scale pilot or research with your target audience, we confirm the change works before rolling it out more widely.

05. Embed change

Embedding change across your organisation may involve internal workshops, communications, or process redesign.

By this stage, we’ve already pinpointed the behaviours we want to change and have designed a proven intervention to do so – resulting in a clear path to success.

Philip Courtenay MBA

Philip is a sought after consultant and speaker on financial consumer behaviour and the science of financial wellbeing.

He has worked with a number of leading financial advisory, insurance and investment management businesses to enhance their offering to clients.

In addition to his consulting work, Philip is frequently asked to speak at industry conferences and events on behalf of international financial services businesses. He is also an award-winning academic researcher on the influences of financial behaviour – having been recognised by Emerald publishing house for his work on the drivers of financial advice-seeking. He is undertaking a PhD at King’s College, London, having received a scholarship from the Economics and Social Research Council.

Philip has held various roles within the financial services sector – most recently as Head of Marketing Strategy for a London-based wealth management firm. He gained an MBA (with distinction) from Warwick Business School, with a focus on marketing strategy and financial consumer behaviour.

What other clients say

Phil hones in on the most important part of engaging with prospective and existing clients; understanding what they really want.

It can be difficult to apply behavioural theory in a practical way; taking theory from textbook into your business isn’t always easy. But Phil gets the challenges advisers face and delivers information in a relevant, directly applicable way.

I’d recommend his expertise to any financial planner or business leader wanting to build and maintain strong client relationships. Thank you Phil.

Anthony Villis

Managing Director, First Wealth

We engaged Philip as an expert speaker on our retirement planning webinar to the financial broker community.

Feedback from over 700 attendees was overwhelmingly positive, with 97% saying they would recommend the session to a colleague. Philip brings his work to life with real world examples. 

I would certainly recommend him and hope to work again in the future!

Teddy Daly

Head of Marketing, Aviva Life & Pensions Ireland

I’ve been advising clients for nearly 30 years, have developed a successful award-winning practice and am asked to speak on financial advice topics around the world. So, it’s not too often that someone really prompts me to sit up and pay attention – but Philip did just that. 

His coaching programme and 1:1 sessions provided me with a number of ‘lightbulb moments’ . Philip has already helped me make some really positive changes to impact how we deal with prospective and existing clients, and there will be more development to follow.

Philip’s combination of behavioural finance expertise and it’s direct application to our profession sets him apart.

If you get the chance to invest in some time with Philip, you will certainly find his insights informative and enlightening, no matter how long your career experience. 

Bhupinder Anand

Managing Director, Anand Financial Architecture

Behavioural Insights

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