BT Financial Group has taken a step towards supporting dealer groups and advisers in their Future of Financial Advice (FoFA) obligations after a major systems implementation for its Asgard and BT Wrap platforms.
Advisers now have administrative support for most of their obligations around fee disclosure statements (FDSs), opt-out and bans on charging asset based fees through the Asgard and BT Wrap Platforms well ahead of the 1 July 2013 deadline.
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The 2012 Investment Trends Report indicated 4 out of 5 advisers would like platforms to help them with implementing the FoFA changes.
Kelly Power, head of platforms at BT Financial Group, said the group responded to adviser needs and reduced the administrative burden of managing FDSs, opt-out and conflicted remuneration obligations.
"The FoFA reforms are broad and significant and we have worked with dealer groups and advisers to design simple flexible solutions to support them in their compliance obligations," Power said.
Wrap Desktop and AdviserNET have been updated to allow advisers to:
– produce and track FDSs via the platform, export relevant fee information directly when creating statements and the ability to print out on the spot;
– use the new tracking tool to manage fee disclosure dates, including agreement start dates and anniversary dates;
– set up email reminders so there is less chance of forgetting to send an FDS;
– save time by using bulk client updates features and format bulk statements using tools and templates;
– track the opt-out status via the platform; and
– automatically dial down the ongoing advice fees if a client opts-out and set the date on which this occurs.
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By GlobalData"The FDS produced will provide advisers with all the ongoing advice fees charged to their client. This functionality is highly customisable – allowing advisers to select the fees they wish to specify and enter the description of the services provided to meet their specific needs," Power added.
BT has also altered its processes to help advisers be compliant whereby an asset based fee cannot be charged where additional or new borrowings are used by geared clients to purchase a financial product after 1 July 2013.
