"Voyant has transformed the way we work with our clients and the way they think about their future. It's no longer simply about discussing attitudes toward risk and potential rates of returns in isolation. Now our clients are changing the way they make decisions. Using Voyant to model the different scenarios, they have deeper insights into both their financial well-being, as well as the value of the service that Lloyds Wealth provides."
Richard Anderson, Head of Lloyds Wealth Planning and Advice
Voyant gives Lloyds the ability to:
Visually demonstrate to customers the impact of their financial decisions
Answer big questions such as how much a customer needs to earn, or whether or not they can retire early
Help clients take a thoughtful, systematic approach to planning for the future including retirement, education, gifting and tax efficient transfer of wealth
Identify excess money that allows customers to do more of what they truly enjoy
Background
For nearly 250 years, Lloyds Banking Group (LBG) has provided financial services for personal and commercial customers, helping them meet their financial goals. The company's success is directly related to the value and power of its relationships, helping customers through booms, recessions, and recoveries. Today LBG has more than 30 million customers and is the UK's leading provider of active accounts, savings, personal loans, credit cards, and mortgages. The Group has approximately 88,000 employees to service its clients.
The Challenge
Following the decision by the United Kingdom's Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), the regulator of financial services, to require all investment services to be fee-based as opposed to commission-based and for all advice firms to serve as fiduciaries for their clients, Lloyds' Wealth Management division, including the organization's private banking services, was faced with a challenge to redesign its entire business in order to meet the new stringent regulations. While other banks are struggling to adapt to the change, and many left the wealth management and advice business, Lloyds Wealth implemented a sweeping redesign of its advice proposition, focusing on customer satisfaction and quality of advice aimed at providing the highest value to customers. For this reason, they sought a solution that could take a client's personal information and project their financial health into the future, adjusting for various scenarios along the way.
The Solution
After an extensive search that included evaluating dozens of financial planning solutions, LBG chose Voyant due to ease of use, depth of functionality and value delivered to both the adviser and end customer. Voyant is now being used by all LBG advisers across the UK, helping them increase the value they provide to customers across all services, including product recommendation, portfolio management, cash flow modeling, estate planning, insurance recommendations and more. Advisors can easily add information about a client's current status and future goals into the system and plot "what if" scenarios to help them collectively plan for life's changing circumstances. Unlike traditional financial planning platforms focused singularly on investment returns, Voyant is goal-based and holistic, allowing adviser to provide advice personal to each client's circumstance. Voyant plans can be updated in real time, as life changes. Voyant was customized to meet LBG's brand standards and is integrated with internal LBG systems that provide additional compliance checks, report generation and data warehouse functionality. In addition, custom modules were implemented to match the company's larger advice processes around Accumulation, Retirement and Wealth Transition.