Three years ago, M&G acquired what was to become M&G Wealth Platform. From the outset, our ambition was to provide an investment platform that could genuinely support each adviser’s (and client’s) needs.
By talking to advisers, paraplanners and networks, we’ve worked to understand exactly what you want from your platform (and what you don’t) to deliver a better experience for you and your clients. Here’s a quick-run down of what we’ve been focusing on.
Make it digital, make it easy
Like many platforms, we’re using digital everywhere we can to maximise efficiency. We’ve introduced DocuSign electronic signatures for most of our new business. Our new Digital SIPP allows every stage of SIPP set-up to be completed online, including pension transfers. As a result, consolidating pensions into a SIPP – whether as cash or ‘in specie’ – can now can take hours, even minutes in some cases.
Plus we’re introducing digital improvements so that activities can be completed in one step. From instructing sold investments to go straight into clients’ bank accounts, to completing a pension illustration and application simultaneously, we’re aiming to make daily tasks simple and fast for your team – and for clients.
Support every investment journey
We know that a great platform shouldn’t just help you perform tasks. It should actively support your advice process.
That’s led to a carefully-curated suite of online tools (including a market-leading CGT tool) that allow you and the client to explore a variety of tax and financial-planning scenarios to determine the best courses of action throughout their investment journey.
Investment choice has evolved to support any investment proposition. Advisers can build their own solutions from over 6,000 funds and exchange-traded investments, partner with any of 100+ discretionary fund managers, or outsource investment strategy completely to model portfolios or multi-asset strategies.
Plus, M&G Wealth Platform is the only platform to host PruFund. You can incorporate these unique smoothed funds into portfolios or use them alongside model portfolios to help clients navigate market volatility.
Have great tech AND great people
Last year, research specialists Platforum cited decreased service levels as one of the key triggers for advisers looking to change platforms. So, as well as the continued improvements to our online service we aim to have expert human support when, where and how you want it.
Alongside maintaining one of the biggest teams of Business Development Managers (BDMs) in the country, we’ve quadrupled our Platform Adoption Consultants (PACs) team and Technical Experts. Our award-winning Tech team provide in-depth technical insight, supporting you on specific client situations regarding tax, pensions and trusts.
We’ve also introduced cloud-based telephony and CRM systems to ensure prompt and targeted responses from our support teams whenever you call us.
Help show value for money
With the advent of Consumer Duty, advisers have to demonstrate that every element of their service, including their chosen platform, presents fair value to clients. To help, we keep pricing as simple as possible with a transparent, all-in-one tiered Annual Platform Charge. There are no additional costs for using our in-house dealing desk, for transfers in or out, or for our in-house wrappers.
These are also potential discounts for families. By opting for our family linking option, the tiered platform charge – which reduces on larger portfolios – can be calculated on a family group’s total portfolio value. So potentially every member of a family group – including spouses, civil partners, parents and grandchildren – can benefit from reduced platform costs.
Alongside the other benefits of our family linking service, we hope that’s a really practical way to encourage intergenerational wealth-planning.
Let you do business your way
From platform adoption to ongoing service delivery, we want to provide a platform that fits seamlessly into your firm, whatever your set-up. We already offer good back-office integration. Now, we have started work to connect to the Origo Integration Hub as a central repository for all our back-office data and files. This should ultimately make it easier for advice firms to put together their own back-office systems, or feed data directly into customer portals.
A platform for you, driven by you
We’ve come a long way in three years – and we’ll keep working to deliver the most useful, supportive and value-for-money platform we can.
From simple pricing to investment choice to people support and digital capability, we’ll keep listening to what you need from your platform in order to deliver expert advice and a great client experience every day.
If you’d like a demonstration of what the M&G Wealth Platform can do sign up for a demo here
