Technology is becoming more and more integral to IFAs' working life. In response to this, portals have begun to widen their remits. Kirstie Redford reports
In the last few years, the world of portals has experienced some dramatic changes, fuelled by what seems to be unstoppable growth. Many intermediaries will remember when the Exchange was the only kid on the block. However, now that Assureweb and Webline have appeared, there are three major portals vying for advisers' loyalty.
There is no doubt that portals currently play an important role in the day-to-day business of many advisers. The tighter regulatory environment that advisers are now working in has brought with it new pressures on time and cost, making the efficiencies of portals seem increasingly appealing.
According to the latest figures from independent e-commerce experts Focus Business Solutions, one in three new business transactions for UK life and pensions business is now electronic. In 2005, there was a 38% increase in electronic transactions from the previous year and figures for 2006 are predicted to show further growth.
Figures from the Exchange also show significant increases in online quotation and e-submission volumes via Exweb. It reached one billion online quotations in October last year and later in November recorded the highest ever new business applications submitted, at 20,302. Compared with Q3 in 2005, the same period in 2006 saw a 53% increase in new business submissions and a 48% increase in the total number of online quotes.
David Child, managing director at the Exchange, says this growth has been spurred on by a market of new users. "Many of the previously 'non-regulated' mortgage and general broker firms now use portals more regularly - something the Exchange responded to with the launch of Exweb Broker for the broader 'lightly-regulated' intermediaries," he says.
However, Child names straight-through processing (STP) as perhaps the most significant progress to be made in recent years. After acquiring back-office technology provider 1st in early 2006, the Exchange launched its STP solution in May, giving users the ability to use Exweb in a seamless way with its back-office solution Adviser Office. "This allowed advisers to re-use data right through the end-to-end business process, with no rekeying required and all the information stored in the back office to create one seamless audit trail," says Child.
Other firsts for the Exchange in the past year include the launch of a new business tracking service - aggregating commission and application tracking data across providers - and the launch of a real-time annuity service for lifestyle products.
Stephen Wynne-Jones, director of sales and marketing at Assureweb, says that a clear demand for more integrated systems is definitely emerging from advisers. "Despite the breadth of product information available on portals, they are still predominantly used as standalone e-trading vehicles. This hasn't changed. What has changed, however, is the demand from intermediaries for these functions to be more closely integrated with their administration and sales systems," he says.
Acquisition
One of the big stories last year was Capita's acquisition of portal Webline in January 2006, followed by its acquisition of Synaptic, a provider of intermediary research information and software, just 10 months later.
When announcing the acquisition of Synaptic, Capita said that the business was an "ideal fit" with Webline and was a "major step" towards a fully integrated and e-enabled solution for professional advisers. This new joined-up system has been labelled Capita's Enabler initiative. The plan is to allow advisers to conduct a fact find using another of Capita's arms Quay Software, then research suitable products using Synaptic and get quotes and apply using Webline.
Synaptic's marketing manager, Eric Armstrong, says that integrating the products is a win-win for all. "Although each product is different, there are opportunities for each part of Enabler to leverage the other parts so that all three products can reach their full potential as an integrated solution," he says.
Paul Holland, chairman of Webline, says that Synaptic compliments its offering from a product features perspective and increases the efficiency of its service to intermediaries. "Providing a means of comparing products quickly and easily and then allowing electronic business processes to be accessed creates huge economies in research resource. The time and resource implications of collating comparative information are likely to be economically prohibitive unless research tools such as Synaptic are used," he says.
Holland firmly believes that the future of portals should be focused on providing intermediaries with more streamlined services and for this reason said the firm would not rule out further collaborations, even if this meant working with its competitors Assureweb and the Exchange.
"We have always been recognised for working with third parties and our motto is that we want to complement rather than compete," he says.
It seems that other portals are also recognising the benefits of linking up with other firms serving the market. Assureweb has just announced it is to team up with Defaqto, which will see the portal integrated within Defaqto's research system Aequos Engage.
This will allow Aequos users to perform their product refinement and selection process based on client need, then link to Assureweb to obtain quotes and short-listed products. Once this information has been obtained, details of the quotes are then stored back in Aequos against other research results, enabling them to be retrieved at a later date.
Like the propositions of both Capita and the Exchange, Assureweb and Defaqto's new solution, available from January 2007, aims to provide a one-stop business process for advisers, by combining front and back-office procedures with product research, obtaining quotes and submitting new business applications.
Collaboration
More collaboration could be on the cards, with all of the main players giving positive vibes about future link-ups. "We will seek other links as appropriate," says Defaqto's adviser national account manager, Roger Perry. "Portals without the ability to complete the business process through partnerships are likely to become isolated," he adds.
Wynne-Jones says such collaborations will mean an easier life for advisers. "Joining up the myriad systems intermediaries need to use to conduct their business is the missing link in realising the benefits from e-trading. It will mean taking less time to perform simple tasks, reusing data and making it easier for intermediaries to maintain their paper trails for the regulator," he says.
Other benefits of integrating systems include the need to train on just one system and having only one set of log-in details to remember.
For the Exchange, the move towards partnerships is nothing new. It has a long-standing link-up with Synaptic and other research products. Child says that key to making link-ups work is having your finger in more than one pie. "Choice is positive for the adviser and we believe co-operation and integration with a range of research solutions is probably more useful than integration - or acquisition - with just one favoured supplier," he says.
Although the Exchange already has a number of well established links, it is still looking to develop its STP proposition by linking with more providers and products in 2007. Child says that greater integration work with Adviser Office, Officeweb, Adviser Evolution and other partners and technology providers not linked with its parent company Vertex is high on its 'to do' list for the next 12 months.
Wynne-Jones believes that as more intermediaries become reliant on these integrated systems, it could change the way advisers sell products.
"It could have an impact on the providers they choose to work with. Some of our customers are telling us that they set their preferred panels of providers based on their e-trading credentials - so if a product cannot be applied for electronically and still requires paper to be sent through the post, some intermediaries don't sell it. They see this as a cost to their business they do not want to support. We're seeing some of them set their panels based on what products are available on portals," he says.
With demand from advisers for technology solutions looking strong, Wynne-Jones says that the next move will be to make systems even more tailored to the needs of individual adviser firms. "I see a future where portals do not exist as they do today, but where their e-trading capability powers a range of back-office, point-of-sale and research systems. In the future, portals may be directly powering the intermediary's back-office administration system," he says.
Child agrees that technology will become an integral part of advisers' business processes - rather than an optional add-on - and with this will come the need for more bespoke solutions. "The future should be one of increased focus on developing solutions that fit the adviser's current business process, rather than trying to change it," he says.
This is, of course, all good news for advisers. With further link-ups between technology providers being predicted and a concerted effort to make solutions truly integrated, business processes look set to get easier and more efficient. That means advisers will be left with more time to do what they do best - spending time with clients.
Kirstie Redford is a freelance journalist
