Headlines this month
Welcome to our latest Progress Report, designed to keep you updated on the service enhancements we’ve working on.
Covering everything from platform developments to updates to our investment offering, this is your one stop shop to find out what we’ve delivered to make your and your clients’ lives easier.
We’ll also give you a sneak peek of what’s coming up and when you can expect to see them. Some of these things might change, be pushed back or get reprioritised depending on how complex they are, feedback from advisers, or if we need to pivot to new laws or regulations. But we’ll keep you posted here when this happens.
We’ve skipped a month so we can give you a bigger update, so without further ado, here’s July’s update.
✅ Paperless and signatureless Direct Debit approvals through the app
You’ll soon be able set-up a new Direct Debit for a client on the platform, we'll do our usual checks, then send it to their app to finalise and approve.
They’ll get an alert when they log in to the app, confirm their bank details (a banking fraud requirement), tap confirm and that’s it. No paper or signature needed. Take a look:
And if you'd like to find out a little more about what the process looks like your side, check out this article.
Let us know what you think
This is the first of many processes we’re looking to add digital confirmations for. We’re eying change of address, bank details and more, but let us know what other processes you’d like to see go digital.
📥 Better transaction updates
You told us you wanted better information on which money we’re expecting and what we’ve received so far. So, we’re delighted to share a new update to the dashboard.
When we’re expecting money for a portfolio, the dashboard will show:
- Whether a transfer is in progress or completed for that portfolio.
- How much we’re expecting and what we’ve received so far.
- Links to transaction notes and fund transfer status where available.
Clients will also be able to see the same information on their online account and through the app.
📕 Our Annual Report is ready
We’re delighted to share our Annual Report for 2023 - it's great to take a step back and look at what we've achieved in the last 12 months.
What's happened?
Better data
📥 Better transaction updates. On your dashboard for a client, you’ll now see any transfers is in progress/completed, what we’re expecting, what we’ve received so far and more. Clients will also be able to see this on their online account or the mobile app. More on this in the Feature Highlights above.
📄 We’re making IMRs clearer for you and your clients. Similar to what we’ve done on the quarterly report packs, we’ll group them by solution. This means all the information on their investment’s costs, charges and performance is kept together. The changes will only be available for IMRs generated on the top-up tool initially. That way we can get feedback from advisers before rolling out more widely.
Digital first
✅ Clients will soon be able to approve a Direct Debit mandate through the app. More on this on the Feature Highlights above (coming later this month).
🛎️ More improvements to platform notifications – later this month you'll be able to archive old notifications, to make that page a little less overwhelming!
💸 Quicker payments through NatWest PayitTM – soon you’ll be able to a send a QR code to your client; they’ll scan it, choose their bank, it opens their banking app and they pay straightaway. And, you don’t have to bank with NatWest to use it.
It’ll be available for the top-up journey initially, but we’ll roll it out for more processes in the future.
Why not try it out here with a small charitable donation to the MS Society.
What's next?
🪜 Our tiered adviser charging solution which was provisionally targeting a late summer release has now been pushed back to October. This is so we can prioritise further enhancements to the administration of Lump Sum Allowances.
However, the build is progressing well and we’re hoping to be able to share some demos over the summer.
⚙️ We’ve listened and we’re now exploring how we can give advisers the option to cancel or amend a cash lump sum expectation.
What's happened?
Investment reporting and content
🗞️ Don’t miss our latest weekly market update and fortnightly ESG insights, to keep up to speed on the latest market trends.
⏪ Let's talk SDR webinar - Watch the replay: Let's Talk SDR and investing | Parmenion
Investment Choice
📈ETFs are now available on platform for in specie transfers.
What's happened?
📗 Our TCFD report is now live you can access it here. It’s now also included in your clients’ quarterly reports.
What's next?
💻 Pensions Dashboard is in the spotlight again and we need to be ready by April 2025, for a planned rollout to clients and advisers in 2026 - we've started scoping the work involved to meet the new deadline.