OREANDA-NEWS. April 1, 2016. Today’s connected investor is looking for a trusted advisor who they can collaborate with to build a healthy financial life.  The opportunity has never been greater for all financial firms to truly put the client and the client’s best interest at the center of everything they do.

The Department of Labor’s (DOL) proposed ‘Fiduciary’ or ‘Conflicts of Interest’ rule is, at its heart, about advisors, agents and their firms knowing and caring about their clients’ financial life goals and prosperity.

The proposed rule would expand the definition of fiduciary to include anyone who gives advice and require wealth management, retirement and life insurance firms to have a repeatable, visible, auditable process for disclosing fees, providing advice and helping clients choose the right products. 

Advisory firms anticipate that this rule will increase compliance and cost of doing business. According to a recent Fidelity survey of advisors, 75% of advisors anticipate a negative impact on their compliance-related tasks.

For firms to successfully operate in a new world in which the client’s best interest drives investment decisions they will need to operate on a technology platform that captures every interaction, and provides compliance with auditable visibility into all aspects of the business and the communication between clients, their advisors, agents and teams.   While the industry is correct to believe that there could be major impacts with large consequences, firms that proactively choose to align to the deeper message of this rule could capture incredible growth.  Depending on how the rule is issued, those firms who implement a unified system of engagement across all channels, all products, and all geographies stand to gain the most.

At Salesforce, we have focused on putting your client at the center every decision and enabling your employees with the right tools.   The opportunity has never been greater to transform and engage in a deeper way.  We have the system of engagement your firm needs to succeed no matter what form the final DOL rule takes.  Here are three ways we can help.

DELIVER PERSONALIZED, PROACTIVE AND GOALS-BASED ADVICE

Capture and access needs, goals, family and business relationships. Look at client relationships in context with views that your advisory team can collaborate around. Create the right 1:1 experiences, in the right place, at the right time to align with clients and help them realize their financial life goals.  

ENCOURAGE COLLABORATION IN COMPLIANCE WITH REGULATIONS.  

Salesforce provides compliant and productive collaboration tools through internal and external communities.  Regulatory institutions across financial services may require business-related electronic records be kept in non-rewritable, non-erasable format (also referred to as "Write-Once, Read-Many" or "WORM" format) to prevent alteration. With Salesforce and our AppExchange partners Bloomberg Vault and Smarsh, your firm can break down internal silos and encourage real-time collaboration within internal communities accessible at any time from any device.   

Begin the process of transitioning contracts, pricing, fee disclosures, privacy notices, reporting, recordkeeping, controls, supervision and data management into compliance with the proposed rule by centralizing oversight into these key areas while enabling employees to use the right tools, no matter what form the final DOL rule takes.  Meeting the WORM standards that your compliance department needs to report to regulators must include a CRM-enabled system of engagement and a prudent process to ensure compliance.

SMART ACTIONS MAKE ADVISORS AND TEAMS MORE EFFICIENT.  

Deploy easy-to-use tools to create snapshots of book of business performance and key activity alerts. Compile and prioritize information from calendars, tasks and opportunities. Increase visibility into profit and losses, daily tasks, leads, and pending opportunities. Integrate data from Envestnet, Yodlee, Informatica and Advisor Software.

Visit: www.salesforce.com/financialservicescloud to learn more about the newly released Financial Services Cloud, a growth platform to accelerate advisor and agent productivity, and help them build deeper, 1-to-1 client relationships anywhere and on any device.