Illustrate and Apply goes live

M&G Wealth platform’s new Illustrate and Apply tool is set to make the SIPP new business journey even easier, explains Gavin Hughes, Head of Proposition Delivery

This Spring we launched our Digital SIPP – an end-to-end digital pension application solution where everything is completed online, with digital signatures, straight-through-processing and high online integration.

Now we’re taking that SIPP efficiency a step further with a new Illustrate and Apply tool. So, setting up the right retirement solution for your clients should be even easier, smoother and efficient.

What is it?

Illustrate and Apply integrates our SIPP illustration tool with our SIPP application tool. When you input client data onto the platform it will feed into the pension illustration AND pension application processes simultaneously. There’s no need to rekey information from one to another. Plus, any information you change in the illustration will also update automatically in the application.

So once a client is ready to go ahead with setting up a SIPP, their application and all the supporting documentation they need to receive is populated and ready to go.

Special features

Illustrate and Apply tools have been around for a while. However, there are a few features that should make the M&G Wealth Platform tool (which has been developed through extensive adviser and end-client testing) especially helpful:

• Investment range – When creating an illustration, our tool allows you to include any of the 9,000+ assets available to new business customers. So every illustration can be completely client-specific – whereas other platforms may limit what investments you can illustrate on.
• Model portfolios – With older tools, it has often only been possible to illustrate a model portfolio by inputting all the portfolio’s holdings individually, which can be extremely time-consuming. With our Illustrate and Apply tool, simply click on your chosen model portfolio and the illustration will be populated with all the underlying assets instantly.
• Integrated regulatory illustration - In the past, you may have had to create two illustrations to meet the different disclosures required under COBs and MiFID regulation. We now integrate both in one simple illustration. This has also reduced the number of pages of documentation clients receive.

The illustration tool and accompanying documentation also have a brighter, simpler design, with appealing visuals that make it easy for clients to pick out the information that’s most important to them. Plus we now include the personalised illustration as part of the application pack we send to clients – so there’s no longer any need for advisers to send it out.

Coming soon

Illustrate and Apply will be rolled out soon. We’re confident it’s going to make the SIPP set-up journey even slicker and more client-friendly – both for accumulation and decumulation clients.