Quilter has extended its digital signature capabilities for financial advisers, adding five software providers to its approved list.
The wealth manager announced today (December 2) that SignRequest, Hellosign, PandaDoc, Scrive and Legalesign would now be accepted across Quilter’s Old Mutual Wealth platform, Quilter International and Quilter Cheviot.
It follows Quilter’s implementation of AdobeSign and DocuSign earlier this year.
Karin Cook, chief operating officer at Quilter, said: “We have been in constant dialogue with advisers throughout the pandemic to understand how we can best support them and their business both now and in the future.
“Digital signatures have become absolutely vital, allowing advisers to conduct business in a quick and secure way, knowing their clients will continue to receive a quality service.”
The additional providers have been added based on the most popular requests from financial advisers.
The e-signature providers will give advisers proof of signing using a secure process, an audit trail along with a final document and the ability to send, sign, track and manage signature processes online.
Ms Cook said the pandemic had changed the way we all interact both socially and professionally, adding it was important Quilter continued to make strides to help advisers with their propositions.
The news comes after recent research showed advisers’ ability to service their clients remotely was improving, with the number of platforms providing e-signature functions nearly doubling since April.
The coronavirus crisis sent the UK into lockdown on March 23, effectively ending face-to-face meetings between advisers and clients for the foreseeable future.
This presented an issue for an industry that still relied heavily on the use of wet signatures.
Platforms have moved relatively quickly to update these requirements, but advisers told FTAdviser as recently as October that platform signatures remained a sticking point in some of their work processes.
Heather Hopkins, managing director of consultancy, Next Wealth, said: “Offering flexibility to financial advisers and their clients to do business the way they choose has never been more important.”
imogen.tew@ft.com
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