Investment data hub Finio is rolling out its services to advice firms, which the company said should make switching platforms easier.
So far, six firms have already signed up: Mazars, Fairstone, Saltus, Lumin Wealth Management, Cooper Parry Wealth and Fry Family office.
The hub, run by Sprint Enterprise Technology, carried out a poll of more than 70 adviser firms to find out how they would use the data.
The survey showed more than 80 per cent of respondents saying data was needed to produce valuation reports or enable tax planning with accurate data.
While 48 per cent of advisers felt the main benefit of having investment data would be to make switching investment platforms easier.
Robin Bevan, Sprint chief executive, said: “This research provides helpful clues as to how firms intend to use this data which in turn will inform both the type of data that Finio makes available and the manner in which it makes it available.
“It has long been a problem that historical transactions are normally lost when switching platforms; a clear pain point when advisers need to provide clients with performance data over time.
"Advice firms caught in this situation have previously had to stitch together transaction data from the outgoing platform to the incoming one. This is no simple task for even the most well-resourced of firms.”
Of the firms surveyed more than 60 per cent said having a data strategy was of high importance.
More than three quarters of advice firms said they would like a direct feed into their CRM system.
The hub has already been a help in relation to this for Mazars as it put 7IM data into its CRM, Intelliflo Office.
Claire Thompson, technology manager at Mazars, said: “It has allowed us to get data into Intelliflo Office earlier in the day, has allowed us to identify policy mismatches between our CRM and 7IM, and, whilst we are only getting bulk valuations so far, it has paved the way for transaction data as and when Intelliflo are ready to receive this.”
This benefit of Finio was echoed by Greg Horton, CTO of the Fairstone Group.
Horton said: “Finio has allowed us to roll out Gateway (our in-house CRM solution) so much more quickly than we could have done had we needed to build point-to-point connections to the many platforms that we operate.”
tara.o'connor@ft.com
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