With adviser interest in making Platforms part of their business models, it would seem that there is a good commercial case for Platforms. Indeed, it is likely that firms will need to consider not just whether they do adopt a Platform strategy but why they wouldn’t. The FSA Discussion Paper 10/2 has added to the debate with a range of questions about the due diligence, ongoing management, segmentation and customer solution matching along with remuneration methods and transparency as well as best execution.

We have looked at a number of Platforms and written articles as part of our weekly PA column. We have also looked at a recent initiative by Capita that has seen the launch of the Synaptic [Platform] Comparator. There has been some debate about whether it is possible (or right) for a firm to choose a single Platform. The FSA paper said that although they do not expect firms to review the platform market for each client, they do expect firms to consider which platform(s) are appropriate for their client bank – or segments of their client bank – in general terms and then ensure the recommendation is suitable for individual clients…

Different parties have chosen to interpret the FSA statement in different ways. Clearly, there is further debate and lobbying to take place on what is and isn’t acceptable. The Consultation Paper was expected midyear but this has now slipped to Q3 – perhaps giving an indication that there are still some challenges to be resolved in the mind of the regulator. We have written a Paper on the subject of Platforms – available here…. In addition, we have reviewed the Synaptic Comparator product that has now been launched and the article will be published in Professional Adviser in a few weeks. One of the striking issues that Comparator raised was the big, maybe surprising, perhaps even shocking differences in the potential customer outcomes. Platforms do not have simple, consistently clear and transparent charges! Trying to understand the implications of the charges and to compare how these affect customers’ choices is a good thing (some may not agree). If you use a measure such as ‘reduction in yield’ (RIY), or total expense ratios (TER) it is possible to see the ’drag’ of charges on an investment and this can vary significantly between first and second choice as well as the best and worst – hundreds, thousands and tens of thousands of pounds!

By fragmenting the issue of choice, some may see comparison tools as undermining the modus operandi of Platforms as being a single economic asset management solution. However, the differences cannot be ignored and the industry is likely to close some of the gaps through competitive pressure and in time is also likely to consolidate Platform choice through M&A. We believe it is better that the industry sees and addresses the differences of choice and value early as we do not want to see another potential mis-selling scandal that hurts everyone.

Advisers need to look at Platforms to assess whether they are right for their business and for their clients. They should rule in or out of having a Platform strategy with a conscious justification that is reviewed regularly and tested against segments and individual needs. The issue of choice remains, not only at outset (even if a single Platform strategy can be justified when challenged) but also through ongoing reviews for how assessments are carried out and with what frequency – periodic or on each customer transaction.

As for Platform Operators (current and potential), the question of their own business case must be robustly assessed as there is a current trend to reduce costs that could reduce or remove margins. However, there is also a question about whether some Providers can decide not to become Operators if they are to remain viable businesses in the future.

We were joined by Danny Wynn from L&G, Ross Dunlop at Standard Life, Ray Chinn of LV=, Phillip Brown of Partnership, Verona Smith of Cofunds, Adrian Bishop from Scottish Widows, David Greenall from Canada Life and Michael Free and Tessa Lee from Sammedia.

There was little debate as to the capacity for consumers to use the internet to manage their finances. The uptake of online banking, the success of the comparison sites and the popularity of sites such as Martin Lewis’s themoneyexpert.com all showed the consumer’s propensity to go online to manage their finances.

The debate instead focused on the ability of Product Providers and Distributors to take advantage of this propensity.

Much focus was given on the need to ensure services were relevant and desirable by the end consumers. MoneyInfo from Sammedia was held up as a positive example of keeping things relevant for the end consumer. It collates information from different bank accounts and investment vehicles to give an up to date net worth for the client with the ability to analyse their position further. It is created in an ‘Apple’ look and feel to give it a sexy shine.

Another key focus was the creation of new products for the online world rather than simply putting existing products onto the web. Partnership have achieved this and as a result their annuity application form is stripped down from 20 pages to just 10 yes/no answers. They have challenged the accepted norms and smashed them apart.

The re-engineering of solutions is not always possible and advice is always likely to exist and the role of advisers in the sales process is key. But advisers need to embrace the technology too and support the online world bringing clients back to face to face world as required. Solutions like Moneyextra.com can help with that if embraced by the adviser world. They can be tools that IFAs offer to their clients that keep them engaged and keep the adviser at top of mind so when they need help with the more difficult aspects of financial planning they get help from them, when they don’t need assistance they may still transact via the IFA but online on the IFAs site.

Technology has a big role to play in the sale and service of L&P products – those advisers and product providers that realise this and seize the initiate will prosper post 2012. I fear for those (and there are many) that don’t.

The vendors do break down to a number of categories to ease choice though. There are a few mortgage specialists for example – lead by TrigoldCrystal and Mortgage Brain. Choosing a mortgage system isn’t however a two horse race as IntelliFlo, 1st -The Exchange and Plum all have revitalised mortgage propositions.

There are also those with clear focus on financial planning end of the market with specialist planning tools linked directly to backoffice systems. Prestwood and JCS would fit into this category. The mainstream providers 1st – The Exchange and IntelliFlo have increasingly strong offerings in this space as well though.

The tools are also divided into those that have come from a back-office background and those from a front office/POS background. 1st – The Exchange, Plum and IntelliFlo all have a very strong pedigree in the back-office and lead the functionality charts in this area along with True Potential. Focus and TrigoldCrystal have strong POS backgrounds, while Distribution Technology, JCS, CCL and Prestwood have built upon their original strengths of supplying sophisticated financial planning tools. 1st – The Exchange’s recent acquisition of N4 improves their front office capability, especially in the mortgage area. While most of the vendors have now extended out from their initial position to support both front and back-office, True Potential has always supported the breadth of front and back-office functionality and has added depth to the functionality over the last few years, making them overall winners in the functional review.

Few of the vendors have shown that they can scale to support large corporate projects but Focus, Distribution Technology, Crystal and N4 have established capability here. IntelliFlo has made some inroads to the Corporate space with projects at AXA and AEGON (Scottish Equitable). The acquisition of N4 by 1st – The Exchange could be a springboard for them to extend into this space.
For the smaller organisations, there are a number of aggressively priced systems available including Durell, CCL and Plum.

To help navigate this maze of supplier decisions AT8 have produced our Practice Management Upd8. Our report takes a comprehensive look at the suppliers, tracks their functionality, their integrations and their price points. It makes direct comparisons of their functionality at point of sale, the middle office and back office. We also look at the industry standing of each supplier and their key differentiators. The report is available at £2,500 plus VAT. Anyone interested in receiving a copy of the survey should contact us at marketing@at8-group.com or phone +44 (0)121 314 2504

The process of consolidation began last year with the merger of two of the biggest players in the Mortgage market – Trigold and Crystal and this week accelerated with the acquisition of N4 Solutions (N4) by 1st – The Exchange.

There have been a number of weaknesses in the offerings from 1st – The Exchange including:

• Lack of an online solution for the adviser market
• A weaker point of sale offering for Corporate clients (Adviser Evolution failed to gain traction in this space)
• Lack of experience in delivering to large Corporate/Enterprise clients.
• The lack of a clear joined-up sales message across the various disparate product offerings – which often overlapped/competed with each other

The acquisition of N4 Solutions should help to address the top three issues but depending on how well it integrates N4, the fourth issue may be either resolved or exacerbated. There is a major rebrand that has been in the pipeline for the last few months to bring these brands together and it is our understanding that this has been delayed to ensure the N4 products are included. This may help resolve the issue four. N4 was founded in 1999 by a management group with a successful track record and knowledge of the financial services industry. Rapid initial growth led to the company having 100 staff based in their ‘rural’ offices near Cirencester. The vast majority of staff has expertise in mortgages and financial services, as well as business consultancy and technology. The company considers itself to be stable, secure and successful. Based on the financial performance of the company, this view does not seem unreasonable. In July 2007 N4 was acquired by Experian for ‘an undisclosed sum’ (believed to be between £20 and £30 m)! There does not appear to be any specific figure available and even the Experian accounts that refer to acquisition expenditure of $1.7bn only highlights two specific figures and groups N4 under ‘other’. N4 produces and submits full audited accounts to Companies House (auditors are Baker Tilly). The company’s financial results for the year to March 2009 are a turnover of £13.8m up from £9.5m (a 45% increase) and a profit after tax of £3.5m from £1.2m (a rise of 178%). Its Net Assets were £10m and employee numbers were up from 66 to the 84 referred to above.

The justification for the acquisition appeared to be the bringing together of N4’s vertical market expertise with Experian’s market-leading ability in application processing and decision analytics, along with lead generation and property valuation models. N4 had a number of successes under the Experian umbrella including projects at Nationwide and Aviva but didn’t achieve (and arguably didn’t strive for) wider market positioning. N4 continued with an entrepreneurial drive which was beginning to look uncomfortable in the very corporate Experian family and a Management buyout of N4 was done in April 2010. Less than two months later, the management team sold the company to 1st – The Exchange.

When LDC took over 1st – The Exchange it was clear that they were positioning themselves to invest further in creating a substantial technology player in the financial services market. The N4 acquisition is the first step of what may or may not be others in order for them to achieve their vision. N4 brings with it substantial Enterprise experience of success which 1st – The Exchange has lacked. N4 has delivered some large projects including a substantial project at Nationwide. However, they – like others – have had difficulties and ‘expectation gaps’ to manage with big implementations.
N4 and 1st – The Exchange have worked together on several large projects in the past including Intrinsic and Norwich and Peterborough where N4’s POS system was integrated to Officeweb. These projects appear to have gone well and should bode well for the integration.

At Nationwide N4 delivered a mortgage origination system and this mortgage capability will have been of real interest to the 1st – The Exchange management. 1st – The Exchange has been promoting consumer facing solutions to the lenders and the ability to include the origination piece will greatly enhance their offering in this space. Adviser Evolution – the POS system – from 1st – The Exchange has struggled to gain traction in the market and N4 has a strong POS offering, supporting mortgages as well as life products, (although it appears less productised than most). The N4 solution gives an online alternative to Evolution that is badly needed although 1st – The Exchange a keen to point out that they remain committed to Adviser Evolution despite the acquisition.

For several years 1st – The Exchange has had too many products, gained through acquisition that have not been rationalised into a single branded, joined up solution. It should be possible to merge the solutions into a single family as the solutions already link up at client sites and largely complement rather than overlap. However, given the track record of addressing this issue it remains a concern that this will not be done in a timely manner. If properly adopted, the N4 acquisition has the potential to be the strategic solution and justification to ‘retire’ the other product entities gracefully, but it could also further exasperate the confusion of product strategy and choice – time will tell.

Taken as a whole the acquisition makes a lot of sense. It gives 1st – The Exchange parts of the application stack of a distributor that it didn’t address well. If the right focus is given to making the integration work it should enhance both parties position in the market. We await further signs of progress with great interest.

There’s been a lot of noise this week around the manufacturers, with HTC’s new baby, the EVO 4G, selling out in the US and, of course, the Apple iPhone 4 being announced at Apple’s WWDC conference in San Francisco last Monday.

The AT8 crew are all iPhone 3G (or GS) users, and so I followed the conference live from the blogs and would describe the announcement as evolutionary not revolutionary, despite Steve Jobs’s spin. There are some real benefits to the new device:

• Bigger battery = longer standby/talktime – from a personal perspective, I really need this
• Smaller form factor – should fit in my shirt pocket even easier now
• Higher resolution screen – I’m looking forward to seeing this ‘in the flesh’
• Video Conferencing – using a new open standard called FaceTime and utilising a new front facing camera, but only using Wi-Fi at the moment
• Higher resolution camera – up to 5M pixels, with LED flash

I must say, it looks good, too – I like the metal finish and also the glass front and back, which should add to its durability.

The big question is, though, can it shake off the competition of an ever-growing adoption of Google’s mobile operating system Android, with it’s latest incarnation, codenamed FroYo, hitting the newer devices now – I’m not sure and Steve Jobs in his recent interview at the D8 conference, appears to shrug off the competition – certainly, Apple are manoeuvring away from Google, with the inclusion of Microsoft’s Bing and Yahoo search in the new iPhone operating system renamed iOS 4 – incidentally, iOS 4 can also be loaded onto some more modern iPhones and iPods, with it being available for iPad’s later in the year.

Anyhow, I’ve already approached my service provider, who gleefully tells me that I’m going to have to wait a few more days to get an idea of the UK pricing – once I have one, I’ll let you know my first impressions.

1st – The Exchange used the conference to trail a number of interesting developments. The one that gained the most interest was their ‘Client Portal’ and it is an important development for a company that has largely delivered offline technology solutions in the past. The Client Portal quite simply gives the end client a view of the data the IFA holds. It also enables the client to make changes to that data albeit that these changes, for data integrity reasons, aren’t accepted into Adviser Office until approved by the adviser. Client Portal also shows a view of the Portfolio, enabling automated valuations to be requested. Finally, it allows for a secure document store and a protected method of communication between adviser and client.

1st – The Exchange has built the system with mobile devices in mind and demonstrated this with both the iPhone and the Blackberry. Client Portal is a significant development and a positive step forward with a more modern web look and feel when compared to Adviser Office. There is a breed of more modern tools that are being used to engage the end consumer in a number of ways and another good example of such a tool from Sammedia which has a very engaging ‘Apple’ look and feel to it, called MoneyInfo was also on show at the conference.

In addition to the Client Portal, 1st – The Exchange was also showing of its new financial planning tools to the market. Again, what they have built, is an impressive step forward over some of the older, but still widely used Product solutions. Financial planning tools tightly integrated to the back-office makes a lot of sense and my only disappointment with the tools that were on show is that they are probably still six months from general release.

1st –The Exchange is the largest ‘quote and apply’ portal and is still the largest back-office system in the market. As market leader, they are often picked on as the firm people love to hate. However, the value that they provide to the industry has been and still is, immense. The company has a broad set of product functionality and the financial backing to push its strategy forward. It spends more on R&D than some of the smaller companies’ annual turnover. As with all suppliers, clients and consultants like ourselves often want more to be delivered from them sooner and for everything to work as a joined up story. However, we mustn’t lose sight that ‘Rome wasn’t built in a day’ and maintaining existing functionality, renewing it in new solutions and adding innovative ideas for the future is a significant challenge, but is one that the Company would appear to be working towards delivering.

I was one of the first people to use internet banking when Barclays moved from their PC banking application quite some years ago. As with e-mail, my love of electronic activity is borne from an inherent laziness on my part as I hated the old paper processes that took too much time and effort (‘every second counts’ as one of my hero’s Lance Armstrong would say!).

With my old internet banking process, I had my account number, a membership number, an ID number and password – a similar approach taken by many other online banking, credit card and savings companies since (to varying degrees, some still do today). However, Barclays decided to introduce the ‘pinsentry’ – a calculator-sized piece of hardware that is more suitable to Companies that do online banking – others have followed this trend. The effect on me was to reduce the number of times I access my account and to make the process of carrying out transactions, especially new payments, a real pain! Apparently, Barclay has won some security awards for their system and probably feel pleased with their decision. However, this needs to be considered in the context of customer accessibility and usability as well as security.

I am not advocating a disregard for security and I would not want to have to pick up the bill for some cyber thief clearing my bank account. In fact, when I decided to write this blog, I felt somewhat awkward at raising questions about security when I am also an advocate of protection (my past regulator experience competing with my anti-authoritarian maverick characteristics!). However, I do object to having to put up with inconvenience and cost due to criminal activity in the same way as I object to having to pay for car or burglar alarms. Apparently, criminals carry out relatively small transactions as larger size payments used to draw more attention. The problem appears to be that a set of ‘rules’ automatically detect – AND AUTOMATICALLY BLOCK – ‘suspicious’ transactions, often below £1,000. Perversely, whilst banks try to stop such thefts, they apparently do little to pursue convictions as they are not economical to do so.

In the last 12 months, we have seen personal queries and company queries increase and while this may be the price we have to pay for e-business, it cannot be right that the process is so disruptive! Examples of personal and company queries show that when the ‘fraud/security’ rules trigger a query, they now seem to use a text, or voicemail validation asking several questions to ascertain if the transaction that they have just STOPPED is legitimate. I am happy with the use of technology in this way, but at the end of the process, one may assume that the confirmation that you have just carried out results in a satisfactory ‘clearance for payment’… Sadly it doesn’t!! What you seem to have to do – because ‘that’s the way the system works sir’ – is to restart the whole electronic process and payment again (and hope the retailer/merchant has not blocked you as a ‘poor’ prospect). What this says is that the bank has protected itself and will ostensibly claim to have protected the customer, but the fact that they do not (and claim they cannot) restart the transaction for clearance shows that they are focused on their own interests and not the customer.

The pendulum swinging to greater protection is in danger of making it impractical if not impossible to do business online without having to phone the bank or card company beforehand to tell them that you are going to spend some of your money. However, even making the call is not guranteed to head-off the potential rejection as we found out with Santander just this week. When we phoned to say that a payment would be made for IT equipment with a supplier that was recently caught by the security rules of ‘suspicion’, we were told that ‘the system’ may still reject the payment if the security rules were triggered and the filenote would not necessarily stop the automated procedure. In order to access cash machines and make payments on holiday, it is now common practice [requirement] for custiomers to have to notify banks if you are going abroad (something I used to do anyway).

I personally, and we as a Company, take our banking and credit rating activities very seriously (I pay for the use of several Credit agency ID and credit alert systems). With the planned removal of cheques and reliance on electronic transaction methods, it is important that banks and other companies look at how they implement security in a way that makes it impossible or inconvenient to the criminal, not the customer. The experience of the way systems appear to have been designed to-date, seems have ignored the disruption to the customer and be oblivious to the feeling of embarrassment when ‘security rules’ block payments making it look like you have a problem. I suspect that the electronic validation technology has been tested to a degree, but how much testing has been done on the personal impact these systems have remains much less clear. Despite having complained about the experience at Santander (and received compensation), they say that they cannot [will not] change the system!

E-business is a great asset to our modern world and is breaking down barriers to new geographies and markets that would have been inaccessible or uneconomic in the past. We must be sure that the systems and processes are our servant not our master. Convenience and security need to be managed in partnership with the customer at the centre, otherwise the barriers of ‘protection’ will stop the benefits being realised for all.

• If Facebook were a country it would have the fourth largest population!
• The second largest search engine in the world is YouTube
• YouTube has more content on it than the entire broadcast output of US TV stations, since TV began
• Radio took 38 years to reach 50 million users, TV took 13 years, the internet 4 years, the iPod 3 years. Facebook added 100 million users in less than nine months! iPhone applications hit one billion downloaded in 9 months
• There are 200,000,000 blogs of which 54% update at least weekly, 34% post opinions on products and brands
• 78% of consumers trust peer recommendations

In short social networking has a massive power in the market today and yet is still relatively untapped by the Life and Pensions market.

How can social networking help though? Well I believe it is a brilliant tool for enhancing market awareness, keeping regular proactive contact with clients, supporting customer service, performing market research, listening to customers and prospects. The list is endless.

Companies need to think out of the box. Social networking for many has brought down the barriers associated with privacy and personal information (often to a worrying extent) and this creates enormous opportunity for those with the appetite for information on their clients and prospects. A new service Blippy illustrates this perfectly; it allows consumers automatically to push out purchase details (sourced from their credit cards and retail accounts) in a style not dissimilar to Twitter. It then allows discussion on the purchases. Personally I find this quite baffling that individuals would expose themselves to this level of public scrutiny but they genuinely do – and in doing so provides a wealth of information to retailers, be they high street or financial brands. The lesson is to take nothing for granted and to think creatively.

Another scary example is the openness the more progressive brands have to feedback. Taking on user generated comment in a bold manner, companies like HSBC actively seek feedback, positive and negative and publish both on their websites. While the concept is scary, it has logic at the heart of the proposition. If clients have negative feelings it is better to know about them and address them. If your service is genuinely market leading, keeping tabs on market sentiment can enable companies to address issues as soon as they arise rather than waiting for resentment to build up, by when recover of the damage to the brand becomes really difficult.

We live in a world that when service is received it is instantly posted on different social media and communicated around the world. This can be passively achieved or positively encouraged. Those brave enough will add features to online facilities to let people post tweets or place comments on Facebook about their service. Firms will provide financial tools to look at their financial position and may share some of the information generated (e.g. Buying my Annuity as Open Market Option made me £x a month better off). The means of communicating is expanding rapidly and should be embraced.

The Life and Pensions providers are behind the times with Social Networking and many say it is not appropriate for such sensitive products. This is very dangerous. A recent survey by Datamonitor showed that consumers are already using online resources to get financial advices with over 50% of respondents claiming to do so. While I accept this is largely for simple products that is in part because they can’t yet access much information for the more complex products. We are seeing some movement and companies like Friends Provident are now tweeting but the industry is still behind the curve and lagging other traditionally conservative industries such as Banking.

IFAs are beginning to embrace Social Media – there is already an IFA Twitter league and a very active IFA Twitter community; Distributors have video on YouTube; Social Forums such as IFALife have active discussion groups. LinkedIn has several active groups that discuss issues such as RDR. If providers don’t join these forums they will miss out on some of the key conversations occurring in the market – often about their brands, products and service.

Now, in spite of my erstwhile colleagues describing me ‘a gadget man’, I have some real interest in the iPad, mainly around its potential use for face-to-face interviews with prospects and clients conducted by advisers.

My fascination with touch/stylus style forms processing goes back to the very early days of electronic forms – I helped pioneer the use of a system in the early 1990′s devised by The Exchange and Origo called FormLink and it was the first of its kind to allow for a replica of a paper form to be displayed and used digitally – it was ahead of its time and not very successful, with the major flaws being the lack of standards and low ‘horse power’ of the computers at the time. We were very proud of the form we had created, and it included a picture of a spotty dog which visually looked stunning but was a real pain to print – too much, too soon.

In many respects, although computing power has grown exponentially, operating systems have advanced to embrace rich, graphical interfaces (FormLink was based on Windows 3.1!) and the advent of another damp squib, the Tablet PC, there has been no real advancement of fully interactive, forms processing where the adviser can use an electronic form with the client as if it were a paper form. There have been a few exceptions, Positive Solutions use of Tablet PCs, but it’s never really grasped the imagination.

Now, given the explosion of the smartphone, with slick user interfaces, touch screens and other technologies this might be a really good springboard for better things – if you combine that with Apple’s prowess in producing highly-intuitive operating systems, with iPhone OS 4.0 being announced later today, coupled with innovative hardware, we are poised to have a platform in the iPad that could well hit the mark.

Already, we have discussed financial solutions’ providers developing iPhone apps, with the Distibution Technology and True Potential offerings, and if you search the iTunes Apps store you’ll find many more, eg US product provider, AXA Equitable’s Financial Tool Set. If you take that a stage further, use a device that’s about the size of an A4 sheet of paper, is ultra responsive, visible from a wide angle and can collect data in a context sensitive way and use in-built 3G data communications to transmit the collected data back to a ‘cloud’ based solution, now you’re starting ‘to motor’.

So, I for one, will be visiting my local Apple Store once the iPad is released here and taking a look and seeing if it can really start the revolution that’s been talked about for so long.

The new service is attempting to do something that is actually quite tricky for the financial services space – be interesting and relevant to a growing population of tech-savvy, time poor consumers – consumers who use google, Facebook, MySpace and other internet enabled tools daily.

When I was working at The Exchange on Exweb it was around the time moneyextra.com was created – a classic B2C infomediary service, with comparison engines, links to providers and manufacturers and about 8 years too early. It wasn’t that moneyextra.com didn’t cut the mustard, it was that it struggled to be relevant and didn’t engage the consumer well enough and the impact of the internet of consumer behaviour was still low. After a relatively short period of time, moneyextra.com changed hands, became a conduit advice service for the Bank of Ireland and its UK subsidiaries, changed hands a couple more times and is now an authorised IFA owned by a number of private investors. Over the last five years, there’s been an explosion of comparative sites, gocompare, moneysupermaket et al all of whom have made great in roads to providing routes to market for, mainly, commodity products with personal lines business being at the top of the tree.

What has been missing in these propositions is a compelling digital offering that engages consumers for more complex financial planning needs and routes through to advice. There are a number of solution vendors who are trying to make the grade and the sort of innovation being developed is really quite head turning.

Take 1st – The Exchange – they have recently launched Advice Navigator (AdNav) – they recognised that a better route to consumer engagement was a slick, relevant and informative user interface that wasn’t constrained by static website builds – so using some cutting-edge technologies, mainly Microsoft’s SilverLight, they have developed a platform that delivers some very attractive results – now, link that with all the heritage of the transactional services delivered to their traditional B2B service, Exweb, you really start to motor. So, as a provider, you are able to produce a visually attractive proposition, capture client information subtly during the screen interaction and then draw the consumer through a compliant selection and fulfilment process – nice and straight-through.

Now if you extend that approach to create a platform that can be tailored for an individual IFA’s needs, present a robust consumer-facing web presence coupled with a industrial strength back office, you can start to change the way the consumer accesses products and services. One of the smart things that the Allmyplans team has decided on is to allow access to a vast array of product provider central systems without dictating any particular approach or technology. Despite there being standards for this type of activity, Allmyplans are clever enough to realise that the variations are huge and that the pragmatic approach is take anything the provider throws at them, including paper.

What is clear is that consumers are becoming increasingly reliant on internet delivered services for other parts of their lives, but interaction with financial practioners is still trapped in late-sixties technology approaches – and that has to change, as the risks of new approaches, like goole’s recent announcement of the extension of google finance, might well overtake traditional advice models. What’s interesting too, is that google don’t appear to have the inhibitors that Microsoft have (had) with regard to providing value-added services in their own right – we mentioned a few weeks ago Microsoft Money – it never really worked, but mainly because it didn’t go far enough (and it was tortuous!).

With the new offerings hitting the market now, either for direct to consumer propositions for the larger institutions, or enabling platforms for fleet of foot distributor firms it’s going to be interesting times to see if they can capture the consumers’ heart and minds.