That’s of course possible, there are many factors which impact share price. But the habit of investing little and often, together with compound gains, and the practical financial education that comes with it, is expected to make Co-Owned a beneficial model for customers, that creates loyalty and goodwill for the businesses providing share rewards.

Free share rewards are intended to be the start of the investment journey for customers. In our book, we model that the average household in the U.K. could have amassed £88k in wealth over the past 10 years, if they received 5% share rewards on all of their everyday spending in public companies (with 2% of the share rewards funded by companies, and 3% by customers).

The Co-Owned tech is designed to minimise the friction for both businesses and customers. For example, the ultimate beneficial owners of shares are customers, but they are purchased by a single fund (‘Co-Owned Fund’) to reduce administration in share purchases and to enable customers to vote as a collective in business decisions (eg at AGMs).

Co-Owned can integrate into existing reward schemes, giving customers the option to take existing rewards available to them, or switch to shares, and become a ‘co-owner’ in the company and receive additional benefits. Customers will be able to easily buy more shares in the company to top-up their free share rewards, for example by rounding up spending.

Over time, in the Co-Owned model, typically at least 10% of companies are owned by customers. As set out in our book, businesses pilot different Co-Owned models, find the model which adds most value to the business and customers, then scale it up over time. Models include providing shares for free, linking share rewards to each purchase or engagement, or for example a specific action like upgrading to a premium account.

Many public companies fund share buybacks, to help increase the value of their shares. Co-Owned is an alternative approach, using the same funds to buy shares for customers, with the same aim of increasing share price, in a manner which is both beneficial for existing shareholders and customers. Co-Owned programmes can also be funded through sales and marketing budgets, with Co-Owned focussed on increasing customer acquisition, retention and value.

Businesses start by engaging us to lead a Research project, to determine the size of the opportunity and conduct an analysis of the implementation options. Next, a pilot is undertaken with a small but statistically significant sample of customers, and the results monitored over a 6 month period. As part of the pilot, different models are tested. Once the optimal model has been determined and business case approved, the model is then rolled out at scale.