Blogs

Effective communication is crucial in the financial sector, especially when conveying complex information like pension statements and investment portfolio reviews.

We recently had the pleasure of speaking to one of our customers, Katie Glascott of Hather Financial Services, about her experience of using the Money Alive platform

Our latest product for advisers to deliver personalised portfolio reviews

Find out what we’ve accomplished in our first five years and where we’re heading next.

In early 2022 we conducted a series of quantitative studies on people's opinions about their pensions and the communications they received from their pension administrators.

What the FCA’s new consumer duty means for advisers and providers

Here at Money Alive, we set out to create a platform that was both scalable and had resilience built into it. We wanted to build something that could grow and adapt to the increased traffic to the platform and seamlessly scale without affecting the end client.

Money Alive CEO Andy Kirby and Co-Founder Ian Beestin discuss the firm’s new Equity Release box set and the great feedback it is already getting from adviser’s clients.

We recently spoke to Phil McGovern, Director of MPA Financial Management, about his experience of using Money Alive.

Money Alive’s Co-founder, Ian Beestin, explains how advice and wealth firms can use technology to offer better communications to clients and prospects.

In this session, we tried to predict the timescales over which future trends in customer experience might occur and what effect they could have on firms.

It’s widely understood by Advisers in the Financial Services sector that the public at large have only a limited understanding of their State Pension entitlement. But the results of a recent survey by Money Alive are pretty staggering, nevertheless.

We’re excited to announce that our video platform has just won the coveted Professional Adviser ‘Best Technology Provider Award’. And to make that winning extra special, we won against industry goliaths including Intelliflo and Parmenion, so we must be doing something right!

It’s no secret that many advisers have found it increasingly difficult to secure professional indemnity cover over the past few years. With several large insurers pulling out of the market altogether, and a significant increase in scrutiny around renewal and rising premiums, securing PI cover has become a real source of worry for many firms.

In 2020, the Money Alive Team conducted a series of research with both groups of our viewers, and individuals not familiar with our platform. In total we surveyed or interviewed over 5,000 individuals.

Serena Van der Meulen shares with us her experience using Money Alive to mitigate risk, streamline processes and engage with clients.

You definitely don’t need us to tell you what a challenging year 2020 was for advisers. Amongst all the disruption the pandemic caused to daily life, we’ve seen advisers (and their clients) adapting admirably, embracing new tools and diving head-first into remote working.

What do clients think about Money Alive? We recently spoke to Steve Balmer, Financial Adviser and Managing Director of David Allen, to find out what his clients’ reactions to watching videos from Money Alive have been.

Ian Beestin, Co-founder of Money Alive provides an update on the Money Alive platform following the contingent charging ban that went into effect on 1st October 2020.

A highly requested and long awaited feature is now available on the Money Alive platform. The Custom Next Steps Screen allows system users to personalize their offboarding process once a client has finished a journey.

Advisers who wish to continue to operate in the pension transfer market will have to make some significant adjustments by 1st October this year. The FCA issued a range of new requirements in June though the ban on contingent charging grabbed the headlines.

Don’t fall into the trap of simply treating virtual meetings in the same way you would face to face meetings.

As October approaches practitioners who offer specialist transfer advice are weighing the regulators latest words carefully and, in particular, the ones regarding the ban on contingent charging.

A friend was about to depart on a flight home when the pilot announced “I am sorry to inform you that, due to a technical fault, we will have to find another aircraft before we can proceed”.

Lockdown has given many financial advisers and planners time to work on their business. Unsurprisingly, it’s also been a period when many firms have seen new enquiry levels drop.

Pension transfers may be grabbing the headlines again, but retirement advice for all clients is set to come under renewed FCA scrutiny.

Ask almost any financial adviser about the current approach to long term care and they will provide a long list of concerns.

Today the Product Team and I are pleased to announce that on Thursday 28th November we will start to roll out our biggest platform update so far which includes two new box sets covering new financial topics and a completely overhauled and improved user interface for clients.

Last month I wrote a blog complaining that the latest hoo-ha about DB transfers and, in particular, the media coverage and political commentary that followed the FCA’s June 2019 announcement that they were taking further action on defined benefit transfers. My frustration was that the noise was all based on data up to Sept 2018, before the FCA’s excellent ‘PS 18⁄20 Improving the quality of pension transfer advice’ had had any impact.

Last week I was on holiday so at something of a distance from the FCA’s announcement on June 19th regarding further action on defined benefit transfers.

Last week I attended the ABI’s conference in London where representatives of many of the UK’s leading product providers spoke on the days subject ‘Mapping the customer journey’.

The Gold Standard is a voluntary code of good practice from the Pension Finance Society for safeguarded and defined benefit pension transfer advice, based around a set of 9 principles. Money Alive’s product team have worked with the PFS to offer our support for Advisers to meet these principles.

I was recently interviewed by Lee Roberston for the Octo Members’ podcast.

Designed from the ground up with security in foremost mind The current, 4th generation Money Alive application, has been built from the ground up and is solely owned property of Money Alive Limited. A key reason for developing the platform from scratch, rather than starting with an open source CMS or similar, was for security reasons - ‘off the shelf’ CMS’s are great in that they can be provisioned quickly and aid in development speed but are often prone to known vulnerabilities becoming the target of automated attacks.

Since its launch in 2018 advisers have used Money Alive’s platform to deliver around 4,000 educational journeys to clients comprising over 35,000 videos. Our aim at outset was to support advisers with better risk management, better client engagement and business efficiencies. This is why we are proud to support and be included in the PFS Pension Transfer Gold Standard.

The videos cover key topics including risk, taxation, dependants, death benefits and shopping around. Like Money Alive’s Final Salary content, they are written by experts, filmed in an engaging style, accredited by the Pensions Management Institute and use research including the ABI’s Ideas 42 and the FCA’s Smarter Communications.

In the light of the FCA’s Policy Statement PS19/1 regarding the Retirement Outcomes Review, Money Alive are making educational video journeys on both Flexible Income and Guaranteed Income available on their award winning platform from today at no additional cost.