Sleepwalking? Never. Fundment’s one step ahead
At the Empowering Advice Through Technology conference at the start of 2023, Director of fintech consultancy FTRC Ian McKenna issued a sharp reminder for the platform market: “We are constantly working out the sell-by-date of technology. Things get obsolete today so much faster than in history.
It may feel like a familiar passing comment, but the stakes are evident: McKenna suggests “the UK platform market right now is sleepwalking into oblivion, 95% won’t exist in a decade”.
Doom and gloom it may seem, but doom and gloom it is not from the perspective of Andrew Tiley, Fundment’s Chief Product Officer, who has his eye confidently on the platform’s evolution.
“Investment has a very personal, behavioural aspect to it”, Tiley says, “and Fundment is sympathetic to those needs.”
It is this eye on the human angle – both adviser and client experience – combined with the latest technology that keeps Fundment’s platform attuned to users’ needs. “We are constantly trying to pre-empt the requirements advisers are going to need tomorrow, and I know we are fortunate in being able to respond to that,” Tiley said. “Larger legacy companies just don’t have the same luxury because they aren’t built on the same technology.”
“We wanted to find a solution and make advisers a tool that hands them the power to secure and manage those approvals for multiple clients and execute strategy changes in a timely manner.”
Take Fundment’s new Advisory Portfolio Management (APM) tool, first released in October 2022, with a second iteration just rolled out to the platform’s advisers.
The intention is to empower non-discretionary advisers with technology to expedite client approval of portfolio changes, allowing them to act with similar speed to their discretionary peers. Put simply, the APM tool allows advisers to make edits to investment strategies in model portfolios, contact and confirm permissions with all affected clients, and then execute that change, all in one dashboard.
“Running one strategy for many clients has long been, to all intents and purposes, ‘discretionary thinking’, due to the resourcing for the permissions involved,” Tiley explains.
“So we wanted to find a solution and make advisers a tool that hands them the power to secure and manage those approvals for multiple clients and execute strategy changes in a timely manner. An efficient use of resources.”
Whilst Tiley understands advisers won’t be rushing to make changes to their clients’ portfolios just for an excuse to try out Fundment’s shiny new tool, he believes it will help advisers create value for their clients now more than ever.
“The impact of Putin going into Ukraine and everything that’s happened since – it’s going to make anyone in the investment world, discretionary or non-discretionary, want to make changes,” he said.
“Of course, investing is in the long term, but investor sentiment is mutable. Clients get spooked and being able to efficiently respond to that is only more important on the advisory side because of the nature of the way it’s set up.”
Neither is it just current macro-economic changes Fundment’s advisers must respond to.
Tiley sees thematics, like environmental or social credentials, at play: “Ultimately, there are many triggers that cause investors to speak to advisers about their investments, and we want our platform to let advisers respond to that in a timely manner and without a huge drain on their resources.”
“Some advisers like to have alignment across their clients, and our [Advisory Portfolio Management] tool should and does cater for that.”
Fundment has its finger on the pulse. As NextWealth’s Heather Hopkins highlighted in CityWire in January, research from Vanguard revealed the ‘micro-behaviours’ that advised clients think tech and humans do better. Hopkins summarised the pattern: ‘humans create connections, machines crunch data.’ Or to put it another way, machines make human connections scalable.
As such, the APM tool’s power is in its communications prowess. So much so that Tiley sees APM tool users as running a communications campaign: “Half of the APM tool is to allow the adviser to make the changes to the investment strategy. The other half is a communications and campaign management system in its own right.” With Consumer Duty on the horizon, Fundment’s tool only helps with its requirements of good client outcomes and communication.
Multiple levels of customisation can be built into these campaigns. Advisers can input reasoning for strategy changes or upload their own documents that Fundment will share with their clients. For those boutique advisers whose clients prefer a more personable touch, the APM tool will even share links to videos. Quite literally, advisers do not have to fit any box that Fundment creates for you.
And, following adviser feedback on the first iteration, another addition to the second version of the APM tool lets advisers choose between execution of a strategy change at the next available trading point or at a specified date in the future. Tiley explains the significance: “As an adviser and technology led platform, our mandate is to identify and build adviser-led flexibilities into our platform function. Some advisers like to have alignment across their clients, and our tool should and does cater for that.”
By all impressions, Fundment just might be the exemplar of McKenna’s successful 5%. It has its eye firmly on the future of the investment space, and it’s clear Tiley’s energies are already on Fundment’s ‘next big thing’.