CFS platforms undergo FOFA revamp
Colonial First State (CFS) has announced a fee disclosure statement (FDS) capability and completely removed conflicted remuneration from its platforms ahead of the looming Future of Financial Advice (FOFA) 1 July start date.
The FDS capability, which will be launched on CFS' FirstChoice and FirstWrap platforms, would extract clients' fee information over a specific period and place it in a Word template, which advisers can complete by keying in the services they've delivered over the past 12 months.
As the FDS is a completely new requirement for financial planners, CFS plans to evolve this feature over time, according to general manager for product and investment, Peter Chun.
"This is the first time that advice businesses have sent out statements saying these are your fees over the last 12 months," Chun said.
"It is obviously quite a confronting issue," he added.
"We expect that as this evolves and as clients start receiving these statements advisers will be receiving feedback on what works and what doesn't."
The payment of conflicted remuneration has also been removed for the FirstChoice Retail platform, which will see the payment of trail commissions to advisers stop, with clients to receive a rebate instead. CFS' flagship platform FirstChoice Wholesale already had this model in place, Chun said.
Other enhancements include a new corporate actions capability which will allow advisers to automatically handle how their clients respond to announcements, such as rights issues or share buybacks.
FirstWrap will also launch a new online dashboard offering greater visibility of client accounts and enhanced administration support, Chun added.
"This was based on feedback from a number of planners, where we sat in their office and observed how they actually use their platform — their day-to-day operations," he said.
"As a result we've been able to design a much more streamlined and user-friendly interface which we're calling a dashboard. It reflects how they deal with clients and what their daily workflow looks like."
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