With busy end-of-tax-year planning underway for advisers and paraplanners, having the right technical support on hand can be crucial. With that in mind, Sue Whitbread caught up with Les Cameron, Head of M&G Wealth’s Technical Team. In this exclusive Q&A, not only does Les explain why he’s so excited about the launch of M&G Wealth’s new and improved ‘Tech Matters’ platform, but he also points out some of the improvements and ways advisers can benefit from using the resources available throughout the year.
With the busy tax year-end period in full flow, advisers and paraplanners will be focused on that important deadline of April 5th. Not only will they be ensuring that clients’ allowances have been fully maximised but also that their finances are set up as tax-efficiently as possible to help them achieve their financial goals.
It’s a time of year when M&AG Wealth’s award-winning, popular, online technical support content – accessed via their hub called Tech Matters – proves to be particularly valuable.
IFA Magazine: How will M&G Wealth’s newly upgraded ‘Tech Matters’ hub help advisers and paraplanners to support their clients?
LC: This new site has been designed to optimise the performance of M&G Wealth’s digital Technical Insights content for financial advice professionals, which has always proved to be so popular. Tech Matters is M&C Wealth’s award-winning online technical support hub which has now been upgraded partly because of the value that advisers and their teams find in the content we have on the site.
However, whilst advisers kept telling us that our content was great, they also told us that it wasn’t always easy to access it. So, we set to work to make some big improvements to the functionality of the site. I’m pleased to say that earlier in February, M&G Wealth officially launched our new and improved online technical hub Tech Matters. It brings together so much of the great content that’s always been there, from M&G Wealth’s team of pension and tax experts. However, it now knits all this together in a newly designed website which is incredibly easy for advisers and paraplanners to use. For the user, the functionality and experience really have been transformed. It’s taken a lot of work but I’m incredibly pleased with the result and I think advisers will really appreciate it too.
IFA Magazine: What type of support does Tech Matters offer for advisers and paraplanners?
LC: As I said, there’s always been a huge amount of high-quality content and resources on Tech Matters. It hosts a huge range of materials for advisers and paraplanners, from helpful tools and calculators to all the latest technical insights and hot topics.
We’ve kept all our most popular resources such as on-demand event videos and a knowledge bank that has just about everything you need to know, including some of the basics, like how the tax system works etc. However, the new hub makes everything even easier to access.
Depending on what you’re looking for, the site may suggest an event, various tools and calculators or offer some kind of reading material to bring you all the relevant details you’re after. Our tax planning tools were downloaded 91,747 times in 2023 so we know advisers are finding them useful.
With all our content now in one place, it’s made the user experience infinitely better than it was before. I believe it’s delivered a real step change in what we provide. That’s because the improved technical functionality that the website itself delivers is now equally as good as the excellent technical content that it houses. I’m very proud of it.
Of course, tax year end is rapidly approaching, and the LTA abolition is the hot topic providing an added twist this year. The number one question we’re being asked just now is whether clients will be able to access more tax-free cash under the new rules. So, we’ve developed an easy-to-use tool on Tech Matters which is based on three simple inputs to provide the answer. We believe it is the first of its kind and it’s called the LTA Transitional Tax Free Amount Tool | M&G Wealth. It helps advisers to find out if their clients could benefit from a Transitional Tax-Free Amount Certificate. In an adviser poll conducted by M&G Wealth in December, over three quarters (78%) said they were either unsure or did not have enough information to advise their clients on scrapping the LTA so I think this new tool will be really helpful.
IFA Magazine: How does your new lTA tool work?
LC: Basically, the LTA Transitional Tax-Free Amount tool supports advisers by identifying the standard Lump Sum Allowance, calculating reductions based on default transitional rules and under Transitional Tax-Free Amount Certificate rules, and easily recognises whether allowances are higher under default or certificate rules. Under the new rules, one scenario shows an increase in the potential tax-free amount by over £110,000.
IFA Magazine: For today’s busy IFA, why should and why does tech matter?
LC: Tech Matters to many people working in the advice landscape for many reasons. The heart of good financial planning lies with the financial adviser who can add genuine value for their clients. But that adviser needs to have a full understanding of all the technical details – the risks, the allowances, how the tax system works, etc in order to do that job properly. Only in that way can they be confident that they’re recommending the right approach for their clients, and that they’re putting clients’ money in the right place. It matters because, at the end of the day, optimising tax efficiency and optimising your planning process underpins successful long-term client relationships. That’s the bit I believe delivers the most value in the financial planning process, but it’s underpinned by having the right technical support in place.
Getting that bit right is what matters most to us at M&G Wealth. And obviously it matters to me because that’s what I’ve been doing for the last 20 years of my career, working on technical support, and helping advisers deliver for their clients. It’s constantly changing, of course, however, clients always want that reassurance when they need to do something different to know that everything will be fine and that they have a knowledgeable adviser who can support them.
I’ve always been passionate about helping people understand technical details, as well as our team here. For us, adviser support and adviser services are a very big part of the M&G Wealth brand. So, delivering an improved Tech Matters was a key thing we wanted to achieve.
IFA Magazine: Why have you decided to make these changes to Tech Matters at this stage?
LC: There are a few reasons for it. Before this new hub, over 70% of users would rely on Google Search to find our Technical Insights content. At a company level, adding this new user interface demonstrates our commitment and support for the advice community and to help them to support their clients in the best possible way. We’ve always worked hard to support advisers, it’s really in our DNA, but we’re always looking at how can we make that adviser support even better. We know how highly advisers value really good quality technical support, it’s something advisers keep telling us. And in so many adviser surveys too, technical support always shows up as a key factor.
With the transformation we’ve been through, coming together as M&G Wealth, it made good sense for us to bring it all together under the M&G Wealth banner. Especially since the tech team has been out there as M&G Wealth for a couple of years now.
We’ve now got what we believe is market-leading technical support, including the website element. As I said earlier, if we’re being honest, the old interface simply wasn’t market-leading. We wanted the front end to be to be as good as the content behind the scenes so that’s why we made the changes. We’ve had feedback from advisers for years that they’ve found our content is really good but that finding it and accessing it via the user experience wasn’t quite as top-notch. This upgrade was one big thing we could really improve and build to make a difference to the things that advisers told us really mattered to them. Only time will tell and it’s early days but I am really happy with it, and I think advisers will be too.
IFA Magazine: For you, what are the stand-out aspects of the new Tech Matters platform?
LC: I know I’ve stressed that the content is and always has been really, really good. However, with this new technology, the best thing is that it’s so easy to use and to find what you need. All the content is laid out far better and everything is in one place. You don’t have to go looking for tools or help with an annual allowance and you don’t need to go here or there to see a webinar on a topic. It’s all together in one place and it’s really intuitive.
It’s been built in a clever way so that it maximises the way people use the new site complementing how content was consumed on the old site. It makes it all far easier to access and use. The developers basically knew how people previously interacted with the technical content and then they used that information to build a really user-friendly, easy-to-use, site where you’ll find whatever you need at the time. In their feedback, one adviser told us recently that it’s like having a quality textbook at your fingertips at all times which is lovely to hear. It also looks so clean and slick and there’s no information overload.
Additionally, if for some reason you get stuck, there’s a button so you can ask us a question, and somebody will get back in touch with the answer. Of course, we’re hoping the content is good enough that people won’t need to ask too many questions, but it’s good to know it’s there if needed. Of course, advisers can still get in touch with their usual contacts in our team and can book some time with the technical team if they have something particularly tricky, they want to talk over.
Finally, we also have a technical community on LinkedIn with over 800 members already, where we share content and insight. Advisers and paraplanners can also ask the odd question or two and it’s great to be able to interact and share ideas in this way too.
Click here to learn more about M&G Wealth
About Les Cameron
Les covers most areas of financial planning, specialising in the pension’s technical arena. He joined Prudential in 1997, having held various pensions technical and management roles throughout his career. Les is a Fellow of the Personal Finance Society.
