Financial Services - Where’s Our iPhone Moment?

When you get a smartphone you can enter the account credentials to your email accounts, your e-commerce sites, your social media accounts, your calendars, your photos, into something that fits in your pocket… and you can get access to all of that personal information in one place, accessible using just your fingerprint.

Imagine having the ability to access all your financial information in this way too, things such as your pensions, investments, insurances, property alongside your banking, credit cards and mortgages bought together all in one place.

The financial services industry hasn’t had its iPhone moment yet… we’re still waiting, but the technology exists and at some point in the very near future your clients will begin to use this account aggregation technology. When they do, they’ll expect all the data you hold on them to be available to them in their financial app.

'To own the digital relationship with your clients, you have to provide the interface they will want to put their data in...'

This is a huge opportunity for you, their adviser. You are currently best placed to provide this app to your clients and prospects, pre-filled with all the information you already know about them, but you need to act fast. Once a user discovers the power of having all of their financial information in one place, they won’t want to give it up and it will be very hard to move them off the app they initially choose to use.

To own the digital relationship with your clients, you have to provide the interface they will want to put their data in. One that allows them to access all of their finances, not just the stuff you manage. They’ll want to record their property and have its value tracked and store their home insurance document with it. They’ll want to pull in all the transaction data about their income and spending from their various bank accounts, savings accounts, credit cards, loans, mortgages etc all bought together to provide a comprehensive spending analysis. They’ll want their savings, investments, pensions tracked and valued together with all the associated paperwork. And then you’ll want to communicate with them securely and reliably.

"We built a simple, efficient, digital relationship with our clients..." How many people in financial services can currently say that? The prize is a big one.

Here’s some food for thought:

• AIRBNB  are the biggest room provider in the world, but they don’t own any rooms
  
• UBER  are the biggest taxi firm in the world, but they don’t own any cars
• APPLE & GOOGLE  own the biggest app stores in the world, but they only make a fraction of the apps

In the same way that technology isn’t replacing taxi drivers, it’s making the process of ordering them and using them easier; technology isn’t replacing financial advisers, it’s just revolutionising their relationships with clients.

If you want to offer your clients their financial services iPhone moment,  talk to us  at Sammedia and we’ll show you how our technology will complement your advice service.

Get a demonstration of our award winning moneyinfo client portals by signing up  to one of our regular webinars.