How technology solves the smaller client regulatory challenge

By AdviceBridge

With the regulator increasingly demanding that financial planners can prove they’re serving all their clients, having a comprehensive audit trail in place has never been more important.

For many financial planners and advisers, keeping a well-organised audit trail is an arduous task. It’s especially difficult when it comes to smaller, legacy clients, to whom providing ongoing financial advice is often uneconomical.

This is where technology can help. New tools are being created that can help financial planners provide automated, personalised advice to clients in a way that is consistent, efficient, and auditable.

Every fee matters

It’s easy to overlook smaller clients when you’re running a successful financial planning business. However, it’s important to realise that each fee matters, regardless of its size.

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) wants to ensure that every financial advice client receives an appropriate level of service in return for the income they generate.

As Roderic Rennison, consultant at The Ideas Lab, told Money Marketing: “From a regulatory point of view, advisers should be sitting down and reassessing frequently under their client agreements. As an adviser, you should always carry out what you said you would for your clients.

“This is where advisers need to look at what they are actually providing for their money and the FCA is increasingly looking at intermediaries to see what they are doing to justify their charging in terms of what tangible work they deliver.”

Reducing your client bank isn’t the only solution

Many financial planners deal with the difficulty of managing a large client book by disengaging legacy clients. According to Rennison, the average number of clients you could expect one planner to fully service is between 100 and 125.

“Any more than 250 clients without a highly sophisticated system sounds quite challenging,” he said.

Disengaging clients who appear less profitable than others isn’t the only solution. Technology can help financial planners serve a far wider pool of clients, while still providing a comprehensive audit trail.

As one adviser stated in the Money Marketing article: “With better use of technology, one could probably service more clients…”

An audit trail offers many benefits

Aside from proving to the FCA that you’re serving your clients, an audit trail brings many other benefits for financial planners. They include:

  • Protecting your company from legal liability
  • Keeping your clients informed about the benefits of working with you
  • Offering clients transparent insight into your fees and processes
  • Showing what you have recommended and why
  • Keeping track of portfolio changes.

An audit trail can ensure you prove compliance with the suitability and client reporting requirements of MiFID II.

How AdviceBridge can help

AdviceBridge’s centralised retirement proposition enables financial planners to deliver a consistent, auditable advice service that is still highly personalised to each client

The white label app gathers personal and financial information from the client and conducts a thorough risk profiling analysis. It calculates how much money the client is likely to have in retirement and shows ways of investing more efficiently.

Once the analysis is complete, a comprehensive report is created containing bespoke advice and product recommendations.

By integrating the proposition into your business, you can prove to the regulator that you’re offering a personalised service to every client, no matter how small they are.

Get in touch

To find out how AdviceBridge can help you meet your regulatory obligations and serve more clients, please get in touch. Email hello@advicebridge.com or call us on 020 3925 3850. You can also visit our website at www.advicebridge.com to book a quick demo with our friendly team.