With up to 70% of all acquisitions failing to deliver lasting and long-term financial benefits to the acquiring firm, what steps can you take to get it right?

Financial advisers can underline their value to their clients by not just firming up the investment suitability process but also by explaining each step to educate the investor. In its final guidance paper on assessing suitability in 2011, the Financial Conduct Authority laid out what would be the new lay of the land – and that is: simply using a questionnaire to help assess portfolio suitability would no longer be acceptable.

“Why software is eating the world” - the famous statement by Marc Andreessen, founder of Netscape, in a Wall Street Journal article in 2011. My view is that this is 100% true – but in 2015 this has evolved to being REST APIs are now eating the world. Very few people truly understand the power these can bring to the way we do business both on and off line. Especially in a true SaaS company where you have enormous data stores, often not connected.

As someone who has been working within the financial advisory software market for over 10 years, I’m often approached by a large amount of financial advisory firms who find their current back office software isn’t delivering what it should. We know all too well, committing to a software package isn’t something firms do lightly and therefore selecting a flexible system that can deliver real benefits to a business can often be problematical.

Only 19 cautious funds have managed to return in excess of 1 per cent year-to-date, while only 46 funds from 150 cautious funds have managed to avoid losses at all this year (zero per cent or higher return).

Today’s financial landscape boasts a wide variety of methods to invest client assets. Irrespective of portfolio size or life stage of the investor; there is a solution that can match their risk level and specific objectives. Whilst this comes as great news for advisers and investors it often leaves paraplanners with a whole lot more to think about when conducting due diligence.

Time and again, advisers seem to find themselves in hot water with the FCA (Financial Conduct Authority) over not demonstrating the suitability of their investment advice adequately. 

In a previous blog post called Is technology removing the need for face-to-face local advice?, Jo Gilbey posed the question around the digital revolution and what it can mean to financial firms and consumer engagement moving forward.

As we near the end of week two since launch of the new PFP application, I thought it would be worth sharing some data and insights as well as general feedback we have received from users of our iO Community. Clearly drawing conclusions from the sample size and time frame of 5 days is not something that would ‘stand up in court’, so please view these as preliminary findings.

A few months ago, researchers at Harvard University, announced the results of an incredible project that enables computers to understand human thought, albeit at a very rudimentary level (the computer was able to understand a single word when the human thought of it).

Your clients are under attack. At least, if they fall into the ‘Baby Boomer’ category (age 50-70) they are. Not physically of course but their perceived wealth and good fortune is a cause for increasing resentfulness among younger people. Why should this bother you? Because these disgruntled protagonists have the potential to turn into the grim reapers of your future business success.