I didn't grow up with money. There was no investment portfolio waiting for me, no stockbroker uncle over Christmas dinner, no family conversation about compound interest. Money was something you earned — my dad worked two jobs my entire childhood, my family spent carefully and saved for a family holiday each year. That was it.
What changed things for me wasn't a book. It wasn't a course. It certainly wasn't somebody lecturing me on the importance of saving or investing. It was something else, something unassuming that was happening subconsciously over the course of my twenties: it was watching numbers move. Let me explain.
Eight years at Google and a pension I barely thought about in my twenties quietly taught me something that no classroom ever did. I watched my equity vest. I watched a pension balance grow in a way that felt almost disconnected from the monthly contribution going in. I experienced firsthand — not theoretically, but in my own account — what happens when money is given time and a decent rate of return. I was lucky, I know that. It was never a plan. It was a function of the industry I ended up in and the decade I came of age in. But the reason I am sharing this is because it changed how I see everything.
Most people in Ireland never get that moment.
Christmas 2025. Two nephews in Australia.
I wanted to give them something that would outlast December 25th. Not a toy. Not cash. Something that would actually be there for them in ten years, move numbers for them, and that would carry a message from me with it. Something that said: I thought about your future, not just your Christmas morning.
I couldn't do it. Not in any meaningful, straightforward way. For me, there was no clean, digital way to invest on behalf of a child in another country (or in Ireland), leave a personal note attached to it, and set it to grow. The infrastructure simply didn't exist.
In the same week, in advance of my very first daughter making her way into this world — due in February 2026 — I started looking at what options existed for investing on her behalf from day one, for when she arrives. Like the majority of parents, you want your children to succeed, to give them the best foot forward and the best chance possible when they grow up. Maybe I was a bit premature, as she hadn't even made it into this world, but that's beside the point. What I discovered was a wall.
Outdated platforms. Paper forms. Fee structures I struggled to find, let alone understand, and a nagging sense that the long-term cost to a family's compounding potential hadn't really been thought through from the customer's perspective. Systems designed for a different era and, honestly, a different kind of person — the kind who already has a financial adviser, already understands the jargon, already has enough capital that the friction feels worth it. Not the average Irish family. Not me, a decade ago.
Ireland is a nation of savers. That's not an accident.
We have €170 billion sitting in low-yield deposit accounts. Not because Irish families don't want their money to grow, but because the infrastructure built to help them do it was never really built for them — and they never got to experience the compounding impact that is possible, teaching invaluable financial literacy. It was built for the top of the market. Everyone else inherited the friction.
The incoming Savings and Investment Account framework, if delivered as signalled by the Department of Finance, would represent the most significant shift in Irish retail finance in a generation. The intent is there: accessible investing, transparent fees, a Government mandate to close the gap.
But policy alone doesn't build the product. Someone has to build the product — and more importantly, build a product for the average Irish family.
That's what Legacy is.
One platform, for every generation of your family. Your own account. Your child's account. Your parents' annual gift, automated. All of it in one place, beautifully simple, with fees that are transparent and a design that puts your family's interests first.
Investing shouldn't require a wealth manager. It shouldn't require you to already know the difference between a UCITS ETF and a unit-linked fund. It shouldn't require an abundance of paperwork. I believe it should be as straightforward as setting up a direct debit and watching something grow — for yourself, for your children, for the people you love.
I'm building Legacy because I was fortunate enough to stumble into financial literacy through circumstance, and I think every family in Ireland deserves that same start. Not by accident, but by design.
Grow your wealth. Invest in theirs. Leave a Legacy.
Gavin Eiffe, Founder and CEO of Legacy Financial Technologies Ltd.
Legacy provides a technology platform, not financial or tax advice. The value of investments can fall as well as rise. Capital is at risk.