Deals & People October 7, 2014

Fiduciary Investment Advisors Hires Financial Educator

Fiduciary Investment Advisors (FIA) has taken steps to enhance its employee communication and education services within its defined contribution business.
Reported by

The company has hired Mary Legg as a financial educator. In this role, Legg will provide perspective on participant communication and education. She will help redesign all of FIA’s programs and materials in this area, and help enhance FIA’s offering in the participant services space.

Legg comes from Waters Corporation, where she was director of global benefits overseeing defined contribution plans, a cash balance plan, defined benefit plans and numerous health and welfare plans covering more than 5,000 employees internationally. Legg holds a B.A. in mathematics from Assumption College. She is a certified employee benefit specialist (CEBS), received a certificate in financial planning from Bryant University’s Executive Development Center, and received the Certificate of Global Benefits Management from the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans.

For more stories like this, sign up for the PLANADVISERdash daily newsletter.

“We continue to see demand for proactive service and advice for our clients’ retirement plan participants,” says Mike Goss, executive vice president of FIA. “We want to be regarded as an advisory firm that has a deep offering for the participant, in addition to being a market leader in the fiduciary governance and investment area for retirement plan fiduciaries. I have known Mary for many years as a client, and I am confident that she is the right person to take FIA to the next level in this important area.”

Data & Research October 7, 2014

More RIAs See Tech as Client Experience Enhancer

More than half of independent registered investment advisers (RIA) view technology as a front-office function and a key component for delivering quality client experiences.
Reported by

A new analysis from Schwab Advisor Services shows 53% of RIAs see technology as an important deliverable for retirement plan and individual wealth management clients. While technology innovations have long been used to improve RIA operational efficiency and service delivery capabilities, Schwab says the delivery of technology tools and services for direct use by clients is increasing across the RIA industry.

“Use of technology to support the client relationship can help firms build scale and grow their businesses while maintaining a high-touch, premiere client experience,” explains Neesha Hathi, a senior vice president at Schwab Advisor Services. “For advisers, the increase in personal use of mobile devices and web-based applications translates into technology playing an integral role in facilitating client relationships.”

Never miss a story — sign up for PLANADVISER newsletters to keep up on the latest retirement plan adviser news.

As mobile technology gains prominence, more than two-thirds of those surveyed for Schwab’s analysis said they either already feel mobile technology’s impact at their firm or that they expect to within the next three years. Among the benefits of mobile tech that are of greatest value to RIAs are looking up account information (35%), receiving alerts and electronic approvals (28%), and accessing reports and documents (19%).

Other findings from the “2014 SOLUTIONS” survey show that RIA firms report spending significant amounts of time on data management and system integrations—and on creating client dashboards, building digital reports for clients, and utilizing technology in presentations and billing processes.

Half of RIAs polled say they do not use any social media within their firm. Of those who do, LinkedIn is the most widely used, with 26% of respondents using the platform exclusively. More than seven in 10 advisers who are active on social media say they use the technology in their practice at least once a week.

For their part, clients of RIAs are strongly embracing a technology-enhanced service experience if it is made available to them. According to the survey, most RIA firms and their clients are on a similar technology adoption curve, with 60% of RIAs reporting that clients have been adapting positively to new service approaches and technology solutions.

The more than 1,000 responses included in the “2014 SOLUTIONS” survey were collected from RIAs headquartered in 12 U.S. cities during the summer of 2014. More information is available at www.aboutschwab.com.

«