According to the FSA 87% of firms failed to meet the March TCF deadlines which required firms to have the systems in place to test their TCF processes.  I am not surprised that many failed to meet this deadline but 87% is a massive number.

Against this back-drop I have been pleased to see a number of technology firms providing specific support for TCF.  Kaleidaview – a web-based tool from Golley Slater – hit the press this week and shows potential value by driving TCF directly from their online customer questionnaires. Other companies like Mclaren Solutions are also have offering similar solutions in this space.

For me though, it makes most sense for TCF to be directly run from a distributor’s core systems with real-time data that also avoids rekeying of data.  This approach has been adopted by the True Potential team with comprehensive and impressive results.  You can tell True Potential believe they are onto a winner with their TCF solution which is supported by the glossy marketing material they have invested in.  Indeed, some of the other suppliers in this space fail to even mention TCF on their websites!  That’s not to say the True Potential solution is all gloss and no substance – they say that they have read and inwardly digested 106 FSA documents in designing the solution.  From what I have seen, it looks like they have struck the right balance of meeting the FSA objectives with a thorough understanding of how to incorporate this into the day to day business practices of the Adviser.

It works on 5 basic phases:

• Gather the data from the core systems they have
• Analyses this data
• Circulate the information
• Build and record action plans based on this analysis
• Measure performance against these actions

Of course the distributor is guided through this process in a user friendly way and all of this is logged and auditable along the way. 

All of this places True Potential’s users in a good position for the December deadline and I watch with interest to see how other software vendors respond to help their own users as well.

Written by Mark Loosmore - Visit Website

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 17th, 2008 at 9:22 am and is filed under Industry Chatter, Regulation and Legislation, Technology, eCommerce Views. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.