A wealth management platform from an award-winning innovator

Ferdi Booysen, Head of Client Solutions at Old Mutual Wealth

Financial and wealth advice practices that develop stage-agnostic, flexible and intuitive digital platforms will stand out from the competition in servicing clients from different demographic segments. The win-win-win for the client, planner, and provider is found in solutions that attract and engage clients regardless of which part of the intergenerational timeline they identify with.

Old Mutual Wealth is no stranger to digital innovation, having been placed top 3 in the BCX Digital Innovation Awards Corporate Category in 2020 for their Wealth Integrator and Personal Goal Planner applications. These tools enable financial planners and clients to co-create the clients’ financial and investment plans.

“Clients want to take control of their wealth through managing, protecting, leveraging, and ultimately transferring wealth effectively. They want access to information about investments and the economy; and they want to stay informed on how they are progressing towards achieving their lifestyle ambitions, regardless of the stage of wealth,” says Ferdi Booysen, Head of Client Solutions at Old Mutual Wealth.

Web-based platforms exist to improve the overall client experience and allow clients to transact when and where they choose, but in financial services, there is an added requirement to enhance the advice and sales process. Success in these areas requires active monitoring of outcomes and continual process enhancements. Old Mutual Wealth addresses this requirement by identifying the value streams that resonate with clients and planners and establishing dedicated teams to own, build, and run these streams.

“We study the trajectory of clients’ journeys across our various platforms to understand the end-to-end client experience,” says Booysen.

Research reveals that clients are comfortable to self-service certain functions on their investment accounts, including maintaining personal details, adding to their existing investments, and making withdrawals. In this context, it makes sense for a web-based investment platform to offer unique transactional capabilities to both new and existing clients.

The extent of transactional freedom afforded to clients introduces certain risks, especially when it comes to exploring new investment opportunities, and achieving their investment goals.

“Our clients are equipped with information on the different investment wrappers and vehicles available to them, as well as the associated liquidity and tax implications,” says Booysen. “And depending on the size of the investment, clients are also guided on how to implement the most cost-effective solution.”

Old Mutual Wealth’s web-based platform can, in real time, assess clients’ annual return targets, investment timeframes, and risk appetites to suggest a client-appropriate Personal Investment Target (PIT).

“The PIT is then paired with appropriate internal and external unit trust fund options that aim to deliver on the targeted annual return over the envisaged timeframe,” he says.

The wealth manager’s systems are now seamlessly integrated for straight-through-processing with built-in validations, digital signatures as well as third-party integrations for data quality.

“Nearly 100% of online fund switches now go straight through from the portals to the investment management companies, resulting in faster processing of investment fund changes,” he says.

Financial planners’ lives are simplified too, by maintaining data integrations with the industry’s largest CRM providers, to avoid double capturing in the financial planner’s office and minimise mistakes.

“A client may have a portion of their wealth self-managed, and then have investment professionals who manage the rest of their investment portfolio, for example, a share portfolio manager and a financial planner, a tax consultant for retirement and estate planning matters, etc.”

“Our objective remains to simplify the life of the financial planner and their client, throughout their collaborative financial journey, end-to-end. In this way, we buy them more time, enriching their life experiences” concludes Booysen.

ENDS