Guide to Start Your Year TNS - 2022 Issue

Guide to Start Your Year TNS - 2022 Issue

2022 Issue

Guide to Start Your Year

M&G Investments

Inflation what to make of current dynamics J page 15

Vanguard

ESG investing own, engage or avoid? J page 20

Canada Life

Uncovering your client’s long-term thinking J page 22

Guide to Start Your Year - Issue 4 | 3

Forew0rd

Happy New Year! In this magazine we look back at some of the momentous events of 2021 and what these mean for all of us in finance as we move into 2022. This edition features insights, predictions, services, and business ideas from some of the UK’s top financial providers, providing you with unique and valuable insight into some of the biggest issues coming our way this year. You will also find details of the very latest services and products currently available from our service provider partners. We begin with our very own technical director, Jo Rigby, who looks at some of the biggest events, and acronyms of 2021, as well as providing insight into how technology is improving services and relationships for all of us in the financial sector. From there, we move onto the important role paraplanners play for advice firms in today’s technology-driven environment. Nick Eatlock, CEO of intelliflo, looks at how the role is changing and how technology is helping deliver long-term profitability and value to both firms and clients. Page 6 . We also look at the curious case of China, with experts from Invesco providing valuable insight into why, despite recent regulatory crackdowns, some of the world’s largest and most influential asset owners remain heavily invested there. Page 13. Advisers are facing ever-changing challenges. Therefore, we hear from British multinational asset management company Schroders, which recently conducted its annual adviser survey. Some of the key challenges highlighted by advisers for the coming year include growing trepidation around ESG funds and concerns surrounding wealth transfer. Page 19. The pandemic has pushed digitization to the forefront for many industries. Alastair Black, head of industry change at global investment company abrdn, talks about what this change means to the financial sector in terms of opportunities for advisers, with its own research revealing a staggering increase in remote advising. Page 21. Getting clients to think long-term continues to be an industry-wide issue. Lara Bealing, director of marketing at Canada Life, takes a psychological look at how clients’ views shape their long-term plans and what advisers can do to tap into this.

And there is much, much more inside!

We hope you find these and all the other great articles as useful and informative as we have and that they help you to have the very best 2022 possible.

Best Wishes. Tenet.

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Guide to Start your Year - 202 2 Quick as a flash 2021 is almost over. Having followed the ‘forgotten year’ that was 2020, this year was pretty uneventful. But that doesn’t stop us being busy at Tenet.

Jo Rigby Technical Director

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via funds and discretionary mandates. Our job is to understand what the proposition is and how it is being managed in order to adopt this ESG mandate. As you can imagine it is a mammoth task as there is so much development in this area. Whilst we do this, we are also supporting our colleagues in Policy to understand the FCA’s expectations of us now in the absence of any specific ESG regulation in the UK and in the future when we do have appropriate legislation. You may think this is solely an investment adviser issue but we see this playing out in the mortgage space too. The trend for energy efficient properties, aka ‘Eco homes’ is growing and this is reflected in the mortgage market with the introduction of Green Mortgages. These are often better mortgage rates or cash back options for mortgages on energy efficient homes from a builder or developer or for existing borrowers who have improved the energy efficiency of their homes – perhaps by adding solar panels or insulation. This is definitely a growing market and we will update our mortgage criteria tables to reflect which lenders are active in this space. Here’s to an exciting 2022!

During the year we made a decision to change our name to the Tenet Research Hub away from Technical Services & Research. Other than it being quite a long introduction when we answered the phone, we thought Research Hub reflected more the role that we have within Tenet. Be it mortgage research, fund research or product research, this is our core function and we want to build on our reputation for providing independent, robust research and due diligence to support our advisers. In addition to our research prowess, perhaps the other function that we are renowned for is our helpdesk service. Again this covers all advice areas and if you haven’t used us before why not? In July, we embraced Tenet Technology and rolled out a ticketing system called Desk to manage our helpdesk queries more effectively. Since launch we have dealt with 878 queries and our happiness rating stands at 98%. We aim for 100% each and every time but sometimes we do have to deliver bad news where we can’t approve an investment strategy or an off panel product. Our response times vary depending on the question as we take a myriad of queries. These can be quite basic where we can provide a response immediately, to quite complex where we may be required to research further to confirm our understanding. The team also receive off panel requests and other specialist approvals through the desk system where our service levels are longer. So it is unfair for me to quote an average resolution time due to the variety of enquiries. But I can confirm that we do stick to the timescales we state as I can monitor whether we have met any stated SLA. By adopting desk into our helpdesk, this means that all your email queries are recorded and measured, nothing gets lost. I also have complete oversight of all queries coming into desk. I know who has been assigned the query and how long it has taken them to deal with it. If one of my team are on holiday then another colleague can pick up that query in their absence and see straightaway what the query was and where we are with it. This ensures that

my team continue to deliver and improve on the already excellent customer service that we are recognised for. On top of our desk queries, we continue to take calls via the phone. In the last 3 months alone we have dealt with 1,121 helpdesk calls. So you are all keeping us very busy. We know that some advisers prefer to talk things through and some prefer to provide the detail in an email – either way we offer an avenue that suits you. On a lighter note, we welcomed a set of ‘Tenet Twins’. Our mortgage research consultant Alicia Walsh had twin boys in August: Raphael and Lawrence. Everyone is doing well and Alicia will be coming back to us in April 2022. We brought two new Research Consultants into the team: Thomas Mullen and George Healey. George is on secondment to cover Alicia’s maternity leave, you may know him from his previous role on the Compliance Helpdesk, while Tom joins us from our Customer Care department. We support the development of our colleagues at Tenet and give them opportunities to progress. They both came to us with at least a level 4 qualification, and Tenet continues to support their learning as they study for chartered. Due to the variety of the role, the Research Hub is an excellent spring board for employees who may want to progress into advice or other areas of financial services. The wider team are also excellent mentors and coaches and enjoy the opportunity to share their knowledge and experience with colleagues. By continuing to recruit into Research Hub, we ensure that we have consistency of service for our advisers. Buzzword Throughout 2021 the buzzword was very much ESG, or should I say acronym! With COP26 held in Glasgow this year a lot of focus is on Climate Change and how the financial markets can play a huge part in meeting the UK’s long term goal of being net carbon zero by 2050. In light of this and the various fund launches in this space, the team are undertaking due diligence on the numerous options out there

The Future Looking forward, we will focus on

continuing to provide quality research to all brands within Tenet. Our panel work will continue behind the scenes and we will publish what research we have undertaken and the results of that activity. We will share our findings on what market developments we are seeing across all advice areas based on our interactions with providers and lenders. We will provide thought leadership on key developments in the industry with the general aim to be respected for our open and honest opinions.

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Technology has fuelled the evolution of paraplanning in recent years, releasing the profession from the burden of administration and helping it become a driving force in the delivery of suitable, personal advice. Nick Eatlock, CEO at intelliflo , looks at how the role of the paraplanner has changed and how technology is set to impact the future of advice. In the past, paraplanners were often seen as administrators and report writers, and the role was perhaps viewed as a step on the ladder to becoming a ‘proper’ financial adviser. But in recent years, paraplanning has evolved into a crucial part of the financial advice process, attracting highly qualified professionals recognised for their significant contribution to delivering the best outcomes for advised clients. This change in status has been stimulated, at least in part, by improvements in financial advice technology. Increasingly, manual and labour-intensive processes have been automated, removing the pain of rekeying information and building and reformatting reports. Accessing information has become easier and performing due diligence more streamlined, reducing the time spent on research and in turn freeing up paraplanners to add value through more detailed input into the financial plan. Advice is becoming far more of a collaboration between the technical expertise of the paraplanner and the client knowledge of the adviser. How technology will impact the future of paraplanning and advice

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The COVID-19 effect The impact of the pandemic has increased the use of technology by both firms and clients even further. Over the last eighteen months, we’ve seen users engage with intelliflo software more frequently and in greater depth than ever before. Areas of our systems have seen usage increase enormously as advice professionals sought ways to better service their clients when contact was restricted and employed functionality they had previously not utilised fully, if at all. Clients too have, out of necessity, embraced technology across all parts of their lives. We saw usage of the i ntelliflo personal finance portal increase by 300% last year, with one in 200 UK adults now using our portal. This phenomenal rise shows the willingness of clients to accept digital as part of the financial advice process. It has also had the added benefit of increasing the quantity and frequency of information clients contribute via the portal. In turn, this has reduced the time spent on the fact find and provided more detail on which advisers and paraplanners can base their research and recommendations. The switch to digital has also helped keep lines of communication open between client, adviser, paraplanner and other parties during the various lockdowns. This has been crucial to ensuring the smooth running of the advice process and avoiding delays. We’ve heard that in some cases the transition to video and online has enabled paraplanners to attend more client meetings alongside advisers, saving time and increasing efficiency by removing the need to pass on information afterwards. And now the door has been pushed open, there’s no going back to the old ways of doing things. As we become more familiar with technology and digital processes, I believe the potential to streamline activities and free up time for paraplanners and advisers to spend on the end client can only grow. The business benefits of technology Being able to service each client more efficiently also opens the way for firms to provide suitable, regulated advice to more clients. Our eAdviser Index , which looks at how advice firms are using the available functionality within intelliflo office , shows that making the best use of technology can make a huge difference to a firm’s cost base. The latest figures show that those maximising their use of available technologies have 41% more actively serviced clients

and 126% higher AUA than those who are not yet fully using the functionality on offer. The need for advice has become even greater as people’s finances have been impacted – for both good and bad – during the covid crisis and the ability to service more clients per adviser will go a long way towards closing the much- reported advice gap. The drive towards greater integration of different software and systems will also help improve the efficiency of paraplanners, enabling them to access and share >Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 Page 10 Page 11 Page 12 Page 13 Page 14 Page 15 Page 16 Page 17 Page 18 Page 19 Page 20 Page 21 Page 22 Page 23

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