Lastly, Advisors have a real opportunity here to extend value well beyond the nature of their relationship with clients by providing a Personal Life Management Vault where clients can efficiently manage their life in a structured and secure way via personal and private folders.
This is significant for firms because it represents much more than providing a secure way for clients to manage their own information, this represents a completely new way of conducting “business-as-usual" and how advisors are able to engage with clients and their family members.
Hortz: Are there any recommendations or advice you can share for advisors on how they might best be able to apply this digital vault technology to their firm and practice right now?
Borghesan: This is an important question that has quite a few implications for firms and advisors.
One of the first points I want to surface here—in an effort to make sure firms and advisors are really coming at this with the right perspective and understanding as they are building their technology stack—is that not all digital vaults are created equally. There are existing platforms and solutions that have some sort of basic document vault “feature”, and what we are discovering through conversation with advisors and advisory firms is that these features are very limited and fall short of solving important use cases and workflow challenges. This is particularly important for organizations looking to “future-proof” their business by way of digitally transforming their processes and taking the advisor-client experience to the next level.
Next, I’d be remiss not to mention the significance of the impending generational transfer of wealth and the notion of heirs to this wealth likely moving the inheritance away from their parents’ advisor to a new institution. Digital vault platforms afford firms and advisors a massive opportunity to “keep their house in order” by securely organizing and structuring their clients’ information and documents for generations to come.
Finally, we have all seen an acceleration toward the digital client experience. Institutions and firms that are looking for ways to win over their clients and put their best foot forward in creating a value proposition that extends well beyond the immediate advisor-client relationship with their firm will, in due time, consider white-labeled, branded, Personal Life Management digital vaults that will create stickiness with clients. The firms and advisors who focus on delighting clients—and their families—will almost always come out on top.
Kenny: FutureVault can not only provide a world-leading digital vault platform to differentiate your business, but we also bring partnerships with onboarding and KYC platforms, fee and reporting solutions, portfolio management platforms, industry data connectors, and CRMs .
Before you embark on a digital transformation, resist the temptation of the “all-in-one" solutions. Instead, ensure you have the best players in the industry to build a world class end-to-end solution that meets your business model. We want all institutions and firms to know that they are not alone, we bring our expertise and relationships to the table – helping them transform and future-proof their business.
The Institute for Innovation Development is an educational and business development catalyst for growth-oriented financial advisors and financial services firms determined to lead their businesses in an operating environment of accelerating business and cultural change. We position our members with the necessary ongoing innovation resources and best practices to drive and facilitate their next-generation growth, differentiation and unique community engagement strategies. The institute was launched with the support and foresight of our founding sponsors—Ultimus Fund Solutions, NASDAQ, FLX Networks, Advisorpedia, Pershing, Fidelity, Voya Financial and Charter Financial Publishing (publisher of Financial Advisor and Private Wealth magazines).