AXA Wealth has launched its new online LifePlanning Toolkit for advisers that helps to give a clearer view of financial well-being to their clients. The toolkit contains a goal planner, retirement income optimiser and a cash flow planner.
The goal planner allows advisers to identify a list of elements which are important to their clients and engage them in the planning process from the very beginning. The tool helps in planning life events, goals and priorities in what AXA believes is a simple and systematic fashion.
Meanwhile, the retirement income optimiser is a way to identify tax-efficient income strategies for the year ahead. It also helps advisers to refine their income strategies in order to bring clients close to their goals.
The third part of the toolkit is a cash flow planner that helps in planning an income shortfall or excess. It allows the adviser to discuss options and helps in demonstrating the impact in case they run out of cash or have surplus cash. It can also help with planning how lifetime goals could have an impact on a client’s expenditure.
MM comment:
One of the biggest aims of investing is profit maximisation, especially if your investments are driven by goals and priorities. A number of people like to plan their investments depending on their goals and each individual’s risk tolerance depends on said goals.
While advisers help in matching investments to goals for their clients, AXA’s latest toolkit can take extra pressure off the advisers and help with assisting in planning their clients’ portfolios. It allows an adviser plan their clients’ goals, retirement income and cash flow all in one place.
The company based its toolkit product on a research conducted by consultancy firm AKG called Pensions freedoms: Clearing the hurdles to business success in the retirement income market. According to the research report, 54 per cent of advisers mentioned cash flow modelling when asked what new products/services advisers or firms planned to offer as a result of the pensions freedoms, while a further 44 per cent said income modelling.
The product blends advice and planning in one and makes it easy for clients to see an example of how their investments could work depending on the goals they have in mind. Financial advisers had always been doing this but this set of tools may just make a few lives easier.
