Keeping it simple - 3 Fs
At our recent Aviva A Game webinar, I spoke about the 3 Fs - Fuel, Fallback and Future.
Fuel is the easiest one to understand. It is the money the business needs every day; the cash for wages, suppliers, tax bills, and the unexpected hiccups that come with running a business. It needs to be there, accessible, doing its job quietly in the background.
Fallback is where things start to get more interesting. This is the buffer, the money that protects the business when a customer pays late, costs spike, or something doesn’t go to plan. Given the pressure Irish SMEs have been under with rising costs and uncertainty, having this cushion matters.
But unlike Fuel, this is money that can start to work a bit harder. Structured deposit options like our Aviva Fixed Return Funds allows clients to hold that sense of security while earning more than they would in a standard current account. It’s still defensive, just a bit more intentional.
Then there’s Future, and this is where the biggest opportunity often sits.
An overnight deposit with one of the pillar banks can be earning as little as 0.09% per annum1. Even if the customer does make a conscious decision to make the money work harder in a deposit account; the average rate is 1.85%1 .
The issue is that over time, that “safe” money isn’t as safe as it feels. With low interest rates and rising costs, it can quietly lose value in real terms. Nothing dramatic happens, but the purchasing power of that cash slowly erodes.
That’s why it helps to reframe it. If money isn’t needed over the next 12 months, it isn’t really “day-to-day cash” anymore. It’s long-term capital, and it deserves a different approach.
This is where Aviva’s investment solutions come into the conversation. Not in an overly complex way, but as a way of helping that portion of cash keep pace with inflation and, ideally, grow over time. For many clients, it’s simply about getting comfortable with the idea that not all money needs to sit in the same place.
And that brings us back to the role of the broker.
For clients who love the work but not the numbers, the real value isn’t in overwhelming them with options. It’s in simplifying things. Helping them step back and ask: what is this money for?
Once that’s clear, the structure tends to fall into place. Some cash stays close because it must. Some is set aside to protect the business. And some can be put to work with a longer-term view. That’s the value of a good game plan: knowing what each part is there to do.
Whereas a simple structure, Fuel, Fallback, and Future, brings balance to it.
And if there’s one way to sum it up for clients, it’s this: every business needs a game plan.
Keep what you need close, protect what keeps the business steady, and give the rest a job to do.
