We live in a connected world where we expect information to be shared across all our devices and systems, and adviser technology is no exception. With improving technological capabilities the value integrated systems bring is increasingly being recognised by advisers. This was highlighted by this year’s Investment Trends’ UK industry survey* findings, where 88% of respondents said they are seeking integration improvements in their systems. Furthermore, 49% of respondents also say they are willing to pay more to have deeper integration between their advice systems and platforms and product providers, giving them integrated suitability reporting, full audit trails and avoiding the costly rekeying of data.
In today’s complex regulatory environment process efficiencies are crucial to ensuring the best use of advisers’ time and expertise. Using multiple advice systems often hampers this rather than helping. I once spoke to an advice firm who said during the advice process they rekeyed the client’s name and address 21 times into different systems. As I retell that example around the industry, rather than shocking people I am usually greeted with a resigned nod – though pleasingly also, a level of optimism that we are now able to consign this sort of blatant inefficiency to the past. This is what advisers are looking to fully-integrated technology to avoid.
One area where we have seen considerable improvement is the level of integration levels between advice systems and the product provider extranets and platforms. This provides advisers with substantial process efficiencies and the improved user experience they are seeking. Technology is driving this through the development of increasingly sophisticated tools such as XPLAN – particularly its Portfolio Management capability. By demanding current data, plus increasing the value of transactional data, these systems have driven an increased provision of richer, transactional integrations with system houses, product providers and platforms. If we take this a step further, the latest drive is for full two-way sharing of data, which we are starting to see emerge now. These deep integrations enable the entire advice process to take place within one core user system, streamlining the process and saving valuable adviser time.
If we look forward, the recognition from advisers of the benefits of truly connected systems will help fuel the move towards fully-embedded integrated solutions being viewed as the required standard. We are likely to see these become more commonplace in the industry, and not just between advice systems and the product providers but between different advice systems as well. Ultimately, using just one fully-integrated solution is the answer to enabling the financial advice process to become more efficient. As the industry looks to address the issue of serving the mass market then integrated technology will become ever more prominent. The days of the unified advice platform are becoming a reality.
IRESS is the leading software provider to the financial services industry, known best for its market-leading solutions including The Exchange, XPLAN, Trigold and MSO.
*Investment Trends May 2015 UK Adviser Technology & Business Report, based on a survey of over 900 financial advisers