SW: We know NS&I has always had really good relationships with financial planners and advisers. But how are you looking to forge closer ties with advice firms going forward? And if so, how are you going to do that?
AP: The immediate focus for us is on getting back out there and meeting advisers face to face. Due to all the COVID-19 restrictions, that’s been very difficult to do since early 2020.
Personally, I’m quite old-fashioned in that I really believe that face-to-face engagement is what creates the best and strongest relationships.
We’re keen to get back to having one to one meetings with advisers, but also to have a presence at key adviser events and at exhibitions too. For us, talking to advisers over exhibition stands and doing presentations to the adviser groups is very important.
But that doesn’t mean that digital communications grind to a halt. We’ll be carrying on with webinars and some of the more digital communications. However, going into 2022, we really want to get back on the road, so look out for us there.
Other than that, the really big focus for my team is on the service enhancements which we can deliver to advisers. We’re very fortunate in that the advice firms we work with have always thought very highly of us because of our security and our brand, the Treasury backing and therefore the trust halo that we provide to advice firms and which gives such peace of mind for their clients. That’s all great and has always existed.
However, like every big financial institution, there are service enhancements that are needed. Some of these have really come to the fore during the pandemic. At the heart of this is that we’ve been turning physical processes into digital processes which makes life so much easier for advice firms.
We began that transition before the pandemic started, back in 2019. It started with the new online service for advice firms, which I’m pleased to say has been extremely popular.
As of today, we have very nearly 1,000 advice firms registered for our online service which is great.
However, we want to do even more. For us, it’s important that we keep talking to advisers and paraplanners about our online service and making everybody aware of it.
For those readers who don’t know, our digital platform gives advice firms fast and easy online access to information on all their clients’ NS&I holdings, for the first time.
Rather than doing everything through paper and through the post, it can all be obtained online at the click of a mouse. That’s really exciting and it has been very well received by the advice community. If there are readers who haven’t registered for it yet, I would strongly advise them to do so because it will be in their interests and ultimately in their clients’ best interests too.
I think it’s fair to say most advice firms will have clients with NS&I holdings, if not all of them. It therefore makes sense for all firms to register so they have a full picture of their clients’ holdings.
We’re not going to stop there, though. We are aware of other digital enhancements that we can carry out to make advisers lives easier. We’ve got some changes in our plans that will be coming to fruition in the next year or two, so look out for those. There are some really exciting developments underway. We are therefore looking forward to building an even stronger future by continuing to work together with the advice community and supporting them in the crucial work they do.
About Andrew Pike
Andrew is Head of Intermediary Relationships at NS&I. He manages NS&I’s key relationships with the intermediary market, including the professional bodies, and oversees NS&I’s overall proposition for financial planners and paraplanners. Andrew has over twenty five years’ experience in marketing and business development, including the last seventeen years with NS&I, where he has also managed NS&I’s retail partnerships.
Click here for more information about NS&I’s online service and how you can register.
