Name:
Title: VP/Advisor Relations
Company: Timothy Plan
Web Address: TimothyPlan.com
In 1994, Art Ally pioneered the first pro-life, pro-family screening standard that birthed the concept of biblically responsible investing, or BRI. Timothy Plan’s commitment is first to the Lord, and will not invest a single penny into any company violating its screens. In the early days, eVALUEator was an invaluable tool that Timothy Plan’s internal wholesalers used when introducing Timothy Plan to financial advisors and investors. It helped to illustrate this new way of investing with Christian values through screening. In fact, some of the Timothy Partners Ltd. (Timothy Plan’s distributor) staff and officers own a minority share of eVALUEator.
eVALUEator is an online tool for financial advisors to create “moral reports” for their clients. Timothy Plan’s screens, once privately-held research, are now managed at the Institute for Corporate Securities Research Inc. (ICSRI). In 2011, ICSRI made its equities research available to eVALUEator subscribers through the INVESTigate tool.
1. What does your firm do/offer within the fintech sector?
eVALUEator not only helps keep Timothy Plan biblically screened, it also provides advisors, money managers and investors with the best tools on the market for screening investments according to morally and biblically responsible ways. This is done by providing customers with up-to-date research delivered through an online subscription service. The data is updated on a consistent basis utilizing Morningstar Inc. data to deliver access to over 11,000 mutual funds, ETFs and variable annuities. In addition, eVALUEator also lets the user screen individual equities and bonds of publicly traded companies, with a database exceeding 30,000 domestic and international companies. All of these are then screened for eight different biblically responsible criteria, with 60 sub-screens within those categories. Any screen may be toggled on or off on any report, delivering customization to reports for both the subscriber and the consumer. Through online access, users can run reports both from a desktop computer and smart device, delivering real-time, updated results to advisors and their potential clients.
Today, the BRI movement has expanded to include several money management firms nationwide who use this tool to screen holdings. In addition, some national biblically responsible brokerage firms use eVALUEator to help their clients invest according to their values, including G.A. Repple and CFD.
eVALUEator has recently launched https://www.christianinvestingtool.com/, which provides individuals free access to basic research on stocks, mutual funds, ETFs, bond funds and variable annuities.
2. What are the biggest problems facing the fintech industry in the future?
Data security will continue to lead the way as one of the biggest problems. Every few weeks, consumers see stories of major companies that have extensive data breaches, making personal information available to the highest bidder. With each innovation, potential problems and lapses in protection arise. Companies will need to treat this with the utmost importance. Once customer trust is lost, it can take years to regain—if ever. One benefit of utilizing eVALUEator to run reports on companies is that no personal data of the advisor’s client is utilized, only that of the subscriber.