Making it easier to access a complete view for retirement income planning

Advice firms constantly add value for their clients – and far beyond monetary terms. At Morningstar Wealth, we’re driven by doing the same for the advice firms we serve. Where possible we want to make advisers’ lives easier, freeing up time for them to focus on more important things that help to empower better client outcomes.

One of the best ways we can do that is by listening to what matters most to financial advisers, paraplanners and administrators and then acting on that vital information.

Providing greater clarity around crystallised funds splits

Sometimes in this process we find it’s the simple things that make a real difference.

One specific example of this came from our continuous discovery work, where we spend time with advice firms, immersing ourselves in how they engage with Morningstar Wealth.

To help investors balance their immediate income needs with future requirements, tax and legacy planning, advisers need to be able to easily access important information in a clear way.

Specifically, advisers need to see the value of a client’s pension fund which has been split after the first time the investor accesses retirement income, leaving the remaining funds invested for future growth.

Seeing this split between crystallised and uncrystallised funds is key to helping advisers and investors make informed decisions and plan for the future. Yet we heard that the way we presented it to you wasn’t as helpful as it could have been.

It involved an email request and lacked visualisation of that all-important split. There was also potential for duplicate requests as the split wasn’t recorded on the Adviser Portal.

Improving this client experience is the first of many enhancements in the pension space.

This enhancement is currently live with 10 adviser firms. They’re testing the functionality and visual design of the new screen. Design is a really important part of Morningstar Wealth’s product experiences, and learning from the world class Morningstar heritage in this space has enabled a powerful and modern aesthetic that will improve the customer experience. We’ll integrate more of these standards throughout the platform as we roll out more upgrades.

For illustrative purposes only.

Adviser Portal users can now see the client’s last SIPP valuation with a visual breakdown of the crystallised and uncrystallised amounts, as well as the lump sum allowance. Both monetary values and the proportion split are shown, based on the most recent calculations.

Before we roll this out to more customers, we’re working on a notification service that will inform advisers if there have been any relevant transactions which could alter the investor’s fund split position. Where there have been, advisers can then request an updated view, with the portal being updated shortly after. In line with our approach of making a series of small, incremental changes, this will become an automated process in the not-so-distant future, with real time valuations and no need for requests.

Learning from those who know best how to make things better

Collaborating with advice firms; listening to their experiences to add value where it matters has been instrumental in reaching this stage of our journey.

There wouldn’t be much point in us going off and building systems or introducing new functionality without consulting with the people who will be using these services day in, day out.

Because, of course, they are the ones who know what works well, the improvements they would like to see and the pain points or friction preventing their business from being as efficient as possible.

It’s why we’re committed to our continuous discovery feedback framework and working closely with advice firms to understand how we can best support them.

An example of this is hearing that, while the percentage split of crystallised and uncrystallised funds was helpful, adding the monetary split was essential.

Initial feedback from firms shows that although the changes we’ve made are small in the grand scheme of things they make all the difference to the user experience. And we’ll keep on making the changes we know matter. One of the advantages of owning our own technology is having the freedom to be responsive and act swiftly.

Time is a precious commodity and we’re working to help advisers free up more of it so they can do what they do best and help clients meet their financial goals.

Less time spent contacting us for basic information means more time to focus on the bigger things.

And the same goes for us – by making lots of small but valuable improvements along the way, we’re creating a better user experience overall.