What do advisers want from platforms?

BARRIE VAN ZYL Head: Account Management, Iress South Africa

Effective and secure end-to-end financial planning platforms give today’s financial advisers an edge in complex markets.

Advisers need to balance competing priorities in these challenging times – retaining a personal touch while empowering clients with digital channels, driving higher levels of profitability, yet enhancing service levels, and driving efficiencies as the regulatory compliance burden becomes heavier.

To get this right, advisers are turning to their technology provider for comprehensive financial planning and wealth management software, says Barrie van Zyl, Head of Account Management for Iress South Africa. Such a platform enables an adviser to simplify operations and streamline processes, while offering a richer client service.

“COVID-19 has accelerated digitalisation across every industry, and personal financial advice is no exception,” says Van Zyl. “Advisers and their clients alike were plunged head-first into a digital world of paperless signatures, online banking, remote working and contactless payments. Whether they were ready for it or not, even those hesitant to adopt digitisation have needed to embrace technology in some shape or form.”

Many advisers have used digital transformation as an opportunity to reevaluate how they do things. Those that have long relied on an assortment of different planning tools, CRM systems and Excel spreadsheets to run advice and administration have realised that end-to-end financial planning and wealth management software enables them to simplify operations and streamline processes, while offering a richer client service experience.

Addressing the pain points

Fully hosted and web-based financial advice software, Xplan, enables advisers to offer their clients a consistent and complete service, from onboarding clients, to offering self service, to providing ongoing financial advice and investment reports. All data and documentation are stored in one central system with full workflow management capabilities that support the entire advice spectrum, backed by a powerful Client Portal that provides secure communication between adviser and client, wherever they may be located.

Xplan financial planning and wealth management software is trusted by more than 9 000 advice businesses ofall sizes and 500 000 users globally, including FPI Financial Planner of the Year winners for 2018 and 2019. These advisers chose Xplan to streamline workflows, and consistently deliver high-quality financial advice.

Flexibility and convenience

Xplan allows advisers to provide their clients with the convenience of viewing their live, consolidated investment and insurance portfolios online at any time. Advisers can use the Client Portal to stay in touch with clients directly through instant messaging and broadcast news and updates to the entire client base – enabling personalised, meaningful correspondence that provides peace of mind with secure two-way communication.

With a focus on client experience, Xplan takes practice management to new levels of efficiency and time management with audit trails, guidance to meet regulatory requirements and tools to streamline advisory workflow.

According to Van Zyl, these features save advisers time, allowing them to focus on connecting with clients rather than compliance and administration, and saving up to 10 hours in onboarding per client at large advisory firms.