SuiteBox regional sales manager for Asia-Pacific, Andy Marshall, wrote in an article for ifa sister title Risk Adviser that financial planning software and customer relationship management (CRM) tools are normally under adviser control and “decidedly one-sided”.
He said that compliance documents such as the financial services guide (FSG), the statement of advice (SOA) and the product disclosure statement (PDS) are missing “the rich record of conversation between the client and adviser”.
“If in 2017 you want to capture the hearts and minds of the consumer, to promote your brand in a positive way, to provide a process that leads to informed consent, that protects your adviser representatives but also allows them to deliver engaging, efficient and compliant advice, then having a tool that does this as part of your offer not only makes sense but is an essential tool,” Mr Marshall said.
Mr Marshall noted that for AFSLs to meet licensee obligations, the client’s voice should be given volume during the most critical parts of the advice process; from the adviser outlining the goals of the client through to the client understanding the consequences of implementing the advice.
He said AFSLs would find it very easy to provide such tools as part of their dealer services, and would represent less than three per cent of typical dealer fees that advisers pay.
“But most of all, the people you would be protecting the most, and delivering a world-class experience and engagement, would be the end consumer.”
SuiteBox was recently announced as a finalist in the inaugural Fintech Business Awards.
Just more cost and red tape being once again imposed on advisers. When is this madness going to end? Also at a time when our incomes are being shredded by bureaucrats and financial institutions. I’m going to get a job as a fulltime volunteer for the Salvos. I would be financially better off I think.
If you read Andy’s full article, it seems to imply that SoAs, PDSs, and FSGs are ineffective in protecting consumers because they have become so big and complex and legalistic, consumers can’t understand them. No sensible person could disagree with that.
Andy’s solution is for dealer groups to buy his product to impose an additional compliance layer on advisers, that is easier for consumers to understand. (And easier for dealer groups to defend in court).
Surely there is a better option. Just simplify the existing compliance documents so that consumers can understand them!
There is no problem with the complexity of SoAs and other compliance documents – they are not complex. The problem is advisers don’t bother to read ASIC’s regulatory guide 175 which clearly shows how simple an SoA is to produce and be compliant. Advisers tend to use someone else’s template or example SoA and just change the client names and worse still, they don’t know what should be in the final version of the SoA when using a template – when in doubt put it all in. Advisers are their own worst enemies when it comes to writing SoAs.
Why am I replying to me own post?
How disappointing that SuiteBox has resorted to pitching its product as yet another dealer group compliance tool. Anything which is positioned in this way is going to be a negative for adviser productivity.
Agree. That’s the trouble with this magazine and its articles (and sister mags) in that many of the articles are businesses flogging their wares under the guise of compliance obligations etc. If you want to advertise pay for an advert!!!
I keep replying to my own posts, I can’t help it!
Actually – sure video recorded meetings might be a solution – but so could be : good file notes and conversations : so it could promote recording meetings, the use of Dictaphones, the use of an echo pen, building threads in a CRM, all of which could be provided by an AFSL as compliance tools. But with an Accenture report identifying gen D – a tech savvy generation of which 64% of boomers are identified as, and 70% of wealth consumers saying they would be happy to engage via portals and Cisco saying that 50% of engagement with wealth advisers will be conducted via mobile apps by 2018 – then sure – you can keep doing what you are doing – why let progress in engagement change your model