Sanlam Financial Advisers equipped for TCF through new technology
30 October 2013 | Technology | General | Jaco Coetzee, Sanlam
Technology is changing the face of the financial services industry. Regulatory changes over the past few years have resulted in markedly increased administrative processes to ensure compliance, and technological advances are forming a critical part of creating an enabling business environment for intermediaries.
Jaco Coetzee, general manager at Sanlam Financial Advisers, says in response to the increased administrative burden faced by intermediaries, Sanlam is introducing web-based technology that will lead to huge time and cost savings for the company’s financial advisers. It will also allow them to capably manage client relationships when the Treating Customer Fairly (TCF) framework kicks in at the beginning of 2014.
He says the SanFin solution will see everything, from client risk tolerance assessment, initial needs analysis and recommendations, to provision and recording of advice, done electronically.
"We are extremely excited to introduce this software as part of our SanPort intermediary portal. It spans the entire financial adviser-to-client consultation process and allows for effective client management. It combines financial planning advice tools, investment portfolio construction tools and back-office tools, in an integrated package. Clients will be able to get the same quality advice but much quicker.”
The technology will also reduce the possibility of error and will help clients understand the advice they are being given through the use of clear explanations and graphs instead of pages of numbers.
Coetzee says Sanlam applied considerable rigour to the process of developing the financial adviser software. "After seeing the substantial increase in paperwork brought about by regulatory and compliance changes in 2004, we knew we had to get to the bottom of the technology needs of our financial advisers and equip them to continue to work efficiently, while complying with requirements.”
In particular, the technology will help advisers adhere to the TCF framework. "The regulations require advisers to make good on their service-level agreements with clients, including regular follow-ups. Where back-office support and client administration take place manually, there is the potential for error, which can be very costly. Within this context, the new technology will prove to be invaluable.”
Coetzee says the costs of providing financial advice have led to increasing neglect of lower growth markets. "Intermediaries can’t afford to go through all the paperwork if the client can’t afford the products or fees to support this expense. We’ve seen the same thing happening in the UK. The more expensive it becomes for intermediaries to render advice, the more they are forced to up their market. With technology that can speed up the advice process and make it more cost-effective, more people across the economic spectrum will be able to access quality financial advice.”
He says SanFin is unique in that it offers a comprehensive set of solutions focusing not only on client administration and needs analyses, but additional integrated software currently available to advisers as stand-alone tools. "It will, in short, be a ‘one-stop shop’ for our advisers. There will also be partial offline functionality which can be synchronised online afterwards.”
The SanFin technology will also improve the client service rendered by the back offices of Sanlam’s BlueStar businesses, initiated in 2008 to empower financial advisers to build their own, independent financial services ventures, while still operating under the Sanlam brand. "The advisers in our BlueStar businesses could previously not share clients, but with SanFin they will be able to, since they will have access to the same central database. This will result in a much more professional service by Blue Star businesses.”
SanFin is currently being piloted by groups of Sanlam financial advisers and will thereafter be rolled out in phases to all advisers over a period of six months. For Sanlam supporting brokers, SanFin will not be compulsory. "We believe it will also benefit them, however. It will make a huge contribution towards making advisers’ systems and processes much easier – moving towards what we hope will eventually become a 90% paperless industry,” Coetzee concludes.
The features of the new SanFin technological solution include:
• Consolidating fragmented tools, bringing all investment tools into one space
• A new risk tolerance questionnaire that is easier for clients to understand and complete
• An online database enabling better sharing of data
• Easy access to data through laptops and tablets
• Fewer manual processes – reducing the need for paperwork
• Efficient data mining and customised searches.
