A UK-based firm has launched a client management and engagement platform and a "hub" drawing together different businesses' offerings in one space. The test is how end-clients benefit from these developments.

UK-based financial software firm Focus Solutions has launched two new offerings that it says will modernise the wealth management sector: a wealth client management system, and a collaborative “hub” linking up to tech providers, with potentially more in the pipeline. The questions now is whether the end-client will have any cost benefit and will any returns of scale be passed on to the firms buying these solutions?

The days when wealth firms had to shop around from a raft of providers for different products and stitch them together in sometimes clunky ways needs to go, Dave Upton, managing director at Focus Solutions, told this publication in a recent call.

Last week, the firm launched focus:wealth, which it described as a “cutting-edge personalised client engagement platform”, and Wealth Hub, which melds three offerings: its own focus:wealth platform, BITA Wealth by BITA Risk and IMiX by Investment Software Limited. (Since 2011, Focus Solutions – founded in 1995 - has been fully owned by Standard Life, operating as a standalone entity.)

The focus:wealth product, the firm says, provides a single client management and engagement platform extending across Client Portal, CRM, Workflow, Compliance, MI with the option of delivering a full range of propositions through the software’s financial planning and digital engagement capabilities; it is modular and can slot into existing wealth management systems. 

As for the Wealth Hub offering, this gives clients the option of having a suite of services that they can buy as a package, or they can take individual elements, Upton said. 

Focus Solutions has been working in the financial advice market for over 20 years and, as it also started to delve into the discretionary fund management space, its team realised that there was a need to integrate financial advice technologies and DFM capabilities into one package. Until that point, vendors had generally treated these areas separately, Upton said.

An existing business relationship with firms such as BITA Risk spawned the Wealth Hub idea, as did its awareness of what IMiX is doing, he said. The “hub” provides clients with a “collection of capabilities that a company may use one or more of”, he said. “This is not an all-or-nothing solution,” he said.

“Because we have a financial planning background we are seeing a lot of private client businesses that want to offer extra services in and around financial planning….we are also seeing large advisory firms going into the DFM space,” he said. “What we have got is an enterprise single solution that supports the DFM and financial planning capabilities,” he continued.

Upton said that during client presentations over the past six months people have been “very excited” by this joined up capability.

This publication asked what were the qualities of a consolidated package that made it more attractive to the wealth management firms it’s aimed at? “An issue at present is that even in relatively modern wealth management firms, many tasks such as checking client suitability and tracking what work has been done has to be logged manually across disparate systems – soaking up enormous time and labour.  A solution that puts these functions together in one place and lets managers have a clear audit trail of where, what and when has been done is invaluable,” Upton said.

How does the client benefit?
All this speed and efficiency is great for advisors and for firms’ bottom lines – once the installation costs have been absorbed – but what do clients get out of this? Will they get a cost saving?

“Well, that is down to our customers, the firms [using the systems], really,” Upton said. In fact, he admitted, if service quality shoots up because of the new approach, some businesses might even feel at liberty to put up their fees. “Put a system like this in and you are going to get massive efficiencies and a better client experience,” he continued.

Asked about the collaboration with BITA Risk and IMiX and how Focus Solutions decided which were the “best of breed”, Upton said the choice was subjective to some degree, but he also argued that he and colleagues had been impressed by their strong reputations when talking to people in the industry.

“We primarily reviewed the products, direction and strategy of various tools and firms in the marketplace, both in the portfolio management space and the risk space.  Both IMIX and BITA were a very good strategic and cultural fit and also demonstrated a very strong product set coupled with a commitment to ongoing development," Upton said. “I think the [BITA Risk] kit is really good and what they’re doing is game-changing,” he said. “People will be happy with the outcome."

“We like kit that sits well in our environment……we are looking at other systems…..there are potentially others,” he added, when asked if other firms’ offerings may eventually be included in the mix.

Asked if these moves are mainly about scaling up in order to be more attractive to a bigger player sooner than would otherwise be the case, Upton replied: “They indeed bring opportunities to all three of us and enhanced credibility. Given that the underlying Focus software has reliably delivered to major banks in the advice market for years, the partnership is more about taking the existing proven capability and widening the offering into the wealth space.”