Investments Advice and Portfolio Selector
The Challenge:
As a result of today’s increased range of investment opportunities, investment decisions have become more complex and an increasing number of investors are turning to professional advisors for help in selecting financial products that will maximise their asset returns. An international provider of financial services and investment resources with access to over 300 mutual funds, as well as offering discount brokerage services, retirement services, estate planning, wealth management, securities execution and clearance, life insurance and other services wished to increase its support to Independent Financial Advisors and Bank Advisors. The challenge was to deliver an advanced risk assessment and profiling tool to advisors who market its range of solutions. The computer based solution would use leading-edge technology to enable its intermediary channel to quickly and easily build portfolios based upon best advice principles that met their client’s financial objectives.
Background:
A global leader in the provision of investment services and products, consistently recognised by industry surveys and publications for providing a level of customer support which has enabled it to become one of the largest and most successful investment management organisations in the world, the company required a solution that could ensure that best practice was followed by its advisors and a fully auditable process record was maintained throughout. FloSuite was used to provide a comprehensive but simple to use solution that could initially be distributed to 5,000 advisors with potential for rapid availability of further copies in future.
Implementation:
Building upon the proven ability of FloSuite and Microsoft’s latest .NET platform to deliver an easily-configurable BPM tool for risk assessment and profiling capable of supporting multiple languages and locales the solution was designed to allow the user to easily control a number of elements involved in the provision of financial products and services and advice. These included the workflow structure, the questions asked and corresponding recommendations, and the provision of detailed reports – all of which can be configured without programming.
Business Benefits:
The overall business benefits gained from deploying the FloSuite risk assessment and profiling tool were two-fold. Firstly, by making it easier for advisors to correctly assess their client needs and match them against suitable investment products, they have empowered intermediaries to make the correct product selections with minimum research, thereby increasing product sales. Secondly, by providing advisors with a reliable, structured sales tool, the company has ensured that clients are given more consistent and objective product recommendations.
In summary, the key business benefits are:
- Increased product sales and revenue
- Consistent best-practice in the delivery of advice to clients
- Detailed audit trail of financial advice and service provision
- Improved compliance with the required advice process, reducing risk liability
Technical Overview:
The solution was developed using FloSuite which is based upon a multi-tier Microsoft .NET architecture, selected because it enabled the provision of the best overall solution in the shortest development timescale and at lower cost. The product user interface consists of a client-based advisor tool and a configurable management tool which enable the solution to be matched to the requirements of different client profiles and investment products.
Summary:
The risk assessment and profiling tool has provided a route to optimising the advice given and enhancing financial product sales through the company’s intermediary channel, ensuring that sales advice met with regulatory requirements. The anticipated benefits of the new streamlined procedures for the sale of financial products to customers include increased product sales, improved client service levels and reduced exposure to risk.