During the course of the past year, Imago Front Office has been developed further for specialist asset transfer company Legacy Asset Systems. The Front Office team has developed the RIY Plus calculator to provide cost comparison facilities and suitability reporting.
RIY Plus has been developed in the current economic downturn which has presented real challenges to the retail financial services industry as much as any other industry. Confidence as well as fund performance has taken a real beating. We know that there is not much new money coming into the market and a good deal is flowing out into cash accounts. With falling portfolio valuations and the nightmare economic scenario of a double dip recession being played out in the media over recent months it is hardly surprising that some IFAs are feeling challenged.
Nevertheless, there are two opportunities currently conspiring with the stock market performance shock to create a massive opportunity for the IFA industry: untapped legacy assets and the emergence of now mature wrap platforms after eight years of trial and error since the first one was launched.
Legacy Asset Systems tackles this massive opportunity for migration of an estimated £1.9 trillion (Source: Standard Life) of legacy assets held in underperforming, largely unmanaged, normally equity-based funds, sitting inside personal pension plans for example, into fully functional wrap platforms. Wraps now have a wide choice of funds, asset classes, tax wrappers, tools for automatic rebalancing of portfolios as well as transparent and often unbundled pricing. They now offer advisers a genuine opportunity to define and deliver a much more holistic and sophisticated service and investment proposition for clients.
The RIY Plus calculator enables adviser firms with support, advice and systems which enable them to systematically identify all existing clients and then lay out suitable ‘asset upgrade’ paths for them. The RIY Plus calculation engine calculates client-specific cost comparisons which will feed into suitability reports. In addition, the services from Legacy Asset Systems generates a full Investment and Asset Migration Report to assist in covering the regulatory needs of any transactions that go ahead and bespoke para-planning service for more complex cases saving time and underpinning the compliant process.
