Tracking, Monitoring, and Maintaining Suitability

Suitability is judged at a point in time — but things can change! Suitability has to be tracked, monitored and maintained as required.
 
On the client-side, the change could come in a number of ways.
 
The client might have had a change in their financial objectives, which means previous arrangements are no longer suitable. Their capacity for loss might have changed due to life-events, changing their risk-profile. Or their investment timeframes may have shifted.
 
Reviewing the client's circumstances does not, generally, mean reinventing wheels. Rather, it is about identifying, documenting and responding to changes.
 
On the investment side, there is almost infinite variability with an immense universe of investments constantly and rapidly changing in value — and sometimes in nature! For example, a fund may have changed its underlying assets which changes its product risk characteristics.
 
The challenge for advisory firms is in handling the massive data flows required to properly track and monitor a sea of potential investments carved up into hundreds, or thousands, of individualised portfolios. It is not a task that can be attempted manually and will require sophisticated data exchange between outside sources and the advisors own planning software.
 
But building these data exchanges is every bit as complex as you might imagine — assuming, that is, that the advisory firm's IT systems actually know what to do with this new pipeline of data.
 
The IT systems advisory firms need allow them to:

• Create an accurate, reliable risk-profile
• Centralise hard and soft facts about the client
• Tailor their advise process to reflect professional judgements
• Map risk scores to asset allocations
• Accept and process incoming data about investments
• Track and monitor suitability
• Allow adjustments to maintain suitability

Our new SuitabilityPro product suite delivers all of these capabilities. Last month we launched the first of three SuitabilityPro components — the new FinaMetrica profiler. Soon we will be able to tell you more about our ProPlanner financial planning software and our ProTracker ongoing suitability dashboard.
 
Keep your eye out for more details!

Posted: 26/06/2019 12:00:00 AM by PlanPlus Global