Forrester publish report on ‘Why financial company websites need online advice tools’

Rethinking of Life Insurance 30th & 31st January

Distribution Technology is the sole sponsor of Rethinking Life Insurance 2008, held at Claridges Hotel in London on January 30th and 31st. Ben Goss, CEO of Distribution Technology, will be presenting on day 2 on the Future of Distribution.

The Future of Distribution in Financial Services, 4th & 5th December 2007, London

Distribution Technology was lead sponsor at the Institute of Economic Affairs conference ‘The Future of Distribution in Financial Services’. Download the presentation – How technology is shaping the future of distribution.

The Future of Life Assurance Conference, May 16/17

DT were a sponsor of the Institute of Economic Affairs’ Future of Life Assurance Conference in May 2007. Download my presentation on the Evolving Distribution Channels panel – Using technology to deliver profitable advice. (990kb)

Dynamic Point of Sale launch event

The 1st of May marked the launch of the new release of Dynamic Point of Sale (DPOS) at The May Fair Hotel in London. We were delighted to see over 90 delegates from a wide range of companies, including existing clients and partners, consultants and representatives from most of the UK’s leading banks, life and pensions companies and national IFAs.

A comment on the Budget

Moving beyond the rather theatrical nature of the deferred changes to income tax and national insurance, which will cost higher earners between £300 – £500 depending on how one does the calculations, some interesting points of planning emerge…………….

TCF: are you ready?

With the FSA’s deadline for all firms to reach the implementing stage of their TCF programmes fast approaching, the time is right to take a critical look at Management Information in the advice process, and particularly its ‘visibility’ to senior management.

“Share plan with client” -the future of face to face advice

Back in the late 90’s as the Internet was beginning to take off in retail financial services, much time and effort was focused on how technology could be used to deliver advised sales remotely. Banks, insurers and even large IFA groups invested significant sums into designing and in a few cases, actually creating online solutions that could support this proposition.

Understanding planning tools

Talking to Ian McKenna (founder and Director of the Financial Technology Research Centre) at Cofunds £10 billion party last week we got talking about the adoption of adviser tools in the industry. His experience at the FTRC is that they are seeing a greater embedding of these tools into the advice process. While seeing this trend as a positive development Ian is concerned that advisers sufficiently understand the tools they use in their work.

Managing business risk and Treating Customers Fairly: The lessons from Garrison and Tancred

The issues of risk tolerance, asset classes and consumer understanding of these concepts have been with us for many years, but the recent High Court case of Garrison vs. Financial Ombudsman Service and the FSA’s Final Notice in the GD Tancred serve to highlight the issue of concentration (the appropriateness of a given proportion of a client’s assets being invested in a particular product of asset class) as a business risk. This article explores the nature of concentration risk and how it can be managed.