Great investment platforms enhance an adviser’s practice and provide them and their assistants with the highly functional, easy-to-use journeys and tools that make managing clients’ financial goals so much more efficient and effective. Responsive service establishes trust and confidence between the firm and their clients, offering a better client experience and providing advisers with a competitive differentiator. 

The digital age promises new levels of efficiency and means new levels of digital experience and, now that clients have truly thrown out their paper forms, it’s time advisers were given the opportunity to be seamlessly digital. 

Advisers have inspired us to do things differently from day one. From straight-through processing to simple investment journeys, advisers have spoken loud and clear, and we have listened. 

INN8 launched its retail investment platform in September 2021 after four years of development – building our new proposition from the ground up using the latest purpose-built technology. Sitting among the country’s top platforms, INN8 allows financial advisers to trade without restrictions on behalf of their clients, track relevant data in real-time, provide tax reports, and reconcile market trades, saving advisers significant administrative effort. 

Offering simple-to-understand investment proposals means advisers’ clients feel empowered and are engaged through their investment journey. 

In 2022, INN8’s business development manager, Arifa Essop, asked the ultimate question: “Would INN8’s proposition really stand-up to the paper incumbents?”  

To answer the call, Arifa submitted INN8’s proposition to the ultimate test against paper. The goal was to compare the time it took to complete an online-onboarding application from beginning to end, head-to-head, digital versus paper. Arifa’s paperless process via the INN8 Investment Platform was completed and submitted for processing in less than two minutes, while the person competing with the paper-based solution wasn’t even half-way through the form that would then still need to be sent in and manually captured (potentially mistakenly) with an estimated five-day turnaround. 

Digital onboarding with speed, accuracy, and automated validation is an absolute must in any investment platform business – and the INN8 Investment Platform has made this central to our adviser experience. 

The key is simplicity. We give advisers and their assistants more time to do high value work whilst the platform takes cares of the operational, time-consuming administration. 

This is, after all, what the new generation of investment platforms is designed to do. With the financial adviser at the centre of the process, an investment platform should create more time for the adviser to do what they love and what they do best – advising clients.  

Advisers’ clients, meanwhile, should be able to log in from anywhere worldwide to check how their portfolios are doing in real-time for peace of mind. In this way, the client feels that they are in control of their financial journey. 

Not all platforms are created equal. As an adviser, it pays to do due diligence to find the right investment platform partner that futureproofs your business, enables your growth and helps build lasting relationship between you and your clients. 

INN8 is a registered trademark of STANLIB Wealth Management (Pty) Limited, an authorised Financial Services Provider, with licence number 590 and registered office residing at 17 Melrose Boulevard, Melrose Arch, Johannesburg, 2196, South Africa; and a registered business name of STANLIB Fund Managers Jersey Limited, regulated by the Jersey Financial Services Commission, with registration number 30487 and registered office residing at Standard Bank House, 47-49 La Motte Street, St Helier, Jersey JE2 4SZ.  

If this article seems familiar, then you must be an avid reader of Money Marketing. It was a part of their January 2023 issue.