Investment Policy Statements: The Technology Return on Investment (ROI) for Financial Advisors
July 31, 2009
Download a PDF version of this white paper here.
Executive Summary
The financial services industry is undergoing rapid change due to recent financial crises on Wall Street and the impacts of a prolonged recession. Market volatility has increased, creating uncertainty and angst in investors’ minds. The demand for transparency has increased, as have the expectations for better “prudent practices.” As a result, there has been a renewed focus for investment planning by financial advisors and the use of the time-tested approach of Investment Policy Statements (IPS).
Considered a “best practice” in modern wealth management, documenting advisor-client agreements in an IPS provides a systematic discipline for decision-making, bringing transparency, clarity and shared understanding to the advisor-investor relationship, helping to build an increased level of trust.
Many financial advisors are using word processing software solutions combined with manual processes to perform the related tasks of creating, updating and maintaining IPSs and the resulting inefficiencies cause higher costs and lack of controls, which result in declining profitability.
Industry experts all agree that the best solution is to adopt technology to increase efficiency, streamline operations and enable rapid response to market changes. New advances and innovations in technology specifically designed for financial advisors to provide web-based investment planning tools for creating Investment Policy Statements that allow advisors to meet these challenges head on and provide a substantial return on investment (ROI) is now available.
“If we tried to create our own Word document, the problem we see is that it would be extremely difficult to maintain consistency, what with re-entering and re-casting the allocations for hundreds of clients. By using the templates in IPS AdvisorPro® we know that we are achieving a big time savings and ROI.”
David Strege, CFP®, CFA®, Co-Founder and Senior Wealth Coach, Syverson Strege & Company
