Frequently asked questions

How can you help?

We offer a bespoke relationship, so we are really only limited by your imagination.  Here is a list of some of the jobs we are currently doing for firms:

• Act as a critical friend to an adviser.
• Provide technical support.
• Work collaboratively with external team members, such as compliance and file checking.
• Produce Centralised Investment Proposition documentation, proving the process behind the outcome.
• Produce due diligence reports on providers.
• Loading customer details into back office systems and allocate workload.
• Manage tasks on back office systems.
• Process letters of authority.
• Obtain policy, scheme and investment information from providers (a process we term ‘data harvesting’) including obtaining information from DB scheme trustees.
• Obtain ceding scheme discharge forms.
• Issue any documentation to clients.
• Liaise with clients to obtain factual information.
• Produce illustrations, either using a platform, an online portal, through a providers’ system or directly with the provider.
• Produce TVC illustrations with cashflows for DB transfer analysis.
• Produce cashflow projections.
• Undertake fund erosion calculations.
• Undertake capacity for loss calculations.
• Undertake drawdown reviews.
• Produce suitability reports for new clients.
• Produce interim suitability reports for existing clients.
• Undertake proofreading.
• Complete checklists against process maps or sales guidance processes.
• Cross-check colleagues work.
• Liaise with compliance partners for any remedial action.
• Gather paperwork needed to complete and administer the case.
• Complete money laundering checks.
• Submit applications.
• Manage the overall processing of the case.

 

How are you a critical friend?

When we work together, we consider ourselves to be a trusted friend who asks awkward questions.  We look at issues together and hopefully challenge what you are thinking.  Ultimately, our success is only a result of your success, so this approach is designed to get the best outcomes for you and for us.

Suitability is at the heart of our relationship. 

• COBS9.2 is the section of COBS that covers fact finding and knowing your clients.
• COBS 9.4 (and parts of COBS 9A) is the section of COBS that covers suitability reports.
• We consider both of these sections to be very clear in terms of creating suitable recommendations. 
• As such, the mechanisms and techniques we will apply to ensure high levels of confidence in an appropriate customer outcome in line with FCA expectations will be to encourage advisers to record client objectives clearly and in the clients own words. 
• We then grade the submissions on the following basis:
  • Risk profile         
  • Capacity for loss              
  • Meeting notes
  • Clear client objectives   
  • Adviser charges instructions
  • Clear instructions            
  • Fact find             
  • Income/expenditure
  • This will be cross referenced with the feedback and case grades

 

How do you make the relationship work?

Induction sessions

These would be online as team meetings, including:

• Introductions to people from Timebank and your business.
• Expectations from both sides.
• Investment process.
• Service propositions.
• Additional responsibilities.
• Systems to be used.
• Templates to follow.
• How usage reporting works.
• What happens next – getting underway.

Team sessions

These cover the same as above but to smaller team groups, as needed (branches etc).

Review and planning meetings

• Review KPIs.
• Review MI.
• Plan coming quarters usage.
• Our experience is that truly successful adviser paraplanner relationships are those that have communication at their core.
• Cases have different stages where information will pass between an adviser and The Timebank.  Each stage should involve communication.
• Transparency of the stage of a case, and who has responsibility for it will ensure responsibility.
• Scoring the stages of handover will encourage development and accountability.

Partnership

We will dedicate two consistent points of contact to the relationship:

• Account Manager.  An account manager will be available to liaise with you over the relationship.  This will include resourcing, quality, MI, reviews assessing the delivery to date and plan for the upcoming delivery requirements and anything to do to ensure smooth relationships.
• Lead Paraplanner.  A lead paraplanner will be available to liaise with you over the service material.  This will include templates, advice, team members, systems, processes and anything to ensure the consistent delivery of service material.

In addition, we will be able to use department heads:

• Head of Support.  Can deploy resources from the support team to best serve the relationship.
• Head of Paraplanning.  Can deploy resources from the paraplanning team to best serve the relationship.

Collaboration

• We build unique, bespoke relationships.
• This means that at a strategic level, we will build a unique relationship that is designed around your requirements. 
• This will then be translated to the individual case level. 
  • The adviser creates the personal recommendation and collaborates with The Timebank to ensure the function is completed as quickly as possible, leaving the adviser free to see more clients. 
  • The Timebank implement and follow a set of rules and guidelines ensuring consistency. 
  • This ensures the adviser can maximise the amount of time spent with clients and create a clean, compliant file consistently.

 

Can we use our templates?

Yes, absolutely. 

In addition, we have a house style that we can adapt for you. 

At the same time, some firms we work with have had their templates for a while and think that they could do with a bit of a spring clean, which we are happy to do too.

 

Can you access our back office system?

Yes, our bespoke relationship means that we can access your back office system and even bring the data up to date for you.

 

Why are you unique?

Scale

• Through tight processes, technology and careful management our team can produce a high volume of work.
• This is evidenced by the fact that we process an average of 1,130 cases a month.
• We operate two teams; a support team and a paraplanning team.
• The support team consists of people who are qualified up to level 4 who undertake support roles, such as obtaining of data, administrative tasks for adviser firms, managing back office systems, proofreading and simple research tasks.
• The paraplanning team consists of people who are qualified between level 4 and level 6 who undertake the technical roles, such as acting as a critical friend, undertaking technical research and technical support, producing reports and reviews and writing professional, educational articles.
• We manage resourcing tightly. 
• This links everyone’s capacity to the proportionate volume of work.
• In this way, we can carefully managed resourcing to ensure we have resource to match demand.
• Clients pay a retainer, which we use as a baseline of expected resource requirement.
• We recruit quarterly and use the retainers to determine how many new team members we need.

Resource

• We manage resourcing tightly. 
• This links everyone’s capacity to the proportionate volume of work.
• In this way, we can carefully managed resourcing to ensure we have resource to match demand.
• Clients pay a retainer, which we use as a baseline of expected resource requirement.
• We recruit quarterly and use the retainers to determine how many new team members we need.

Recruitment

We operate a quarterly recruitment process, so we always have a pipeline of candidates.  This means we can respond to increased demand quickly.

Our recruitment process is strict and works on two interviews and a technical test.  We recruit experienced, qualified people.  Whilst this costs more in salaries, we feel this provides a greater benefit in outcome for our clients.

We have no geographical restrictions, so we can recruit the best people available from around the country.

Capacity

Our capacity is easy to monitor and manage, using our points system.  This means we can vary the level of resource as required.

The workflow and capacity measures are never interrupted.

Flexibility

Our recruitment, capacity measure and retained relationships mean we can be entirely flexible with the scale of the relationships we build.

Experience

We have designed, built and delivered relationships with lots of different firms since 2002, which means we are comfortable with evolving and adapting the service in a nimble manner.

Quality

We believe that measuring quality is the only way to maintain and improve standards.  We are currently delivering.  Our current client satisfaction is regularly updated on this website.  This level of transparency is really important to us, as we stand by everything we do.

Standards

• We are used to operating within lots of different compliance regimes and collaborating with file checkers.

Data

• We will produce any MI needed and review it together towards shared goals and objectives.
• We can work as critical friends to advisers, helping to achieve the best client outcomes.

Critical Friend

• We can work as critical friends to advisers, helping to achieve the best client outcomes.

 

Can you pick funds and products?

We strongly believe that as the risk for fund and product election rests with you, it would be irresponsible to pick funds and products on your behalf. 

Instead, we will undertake all the research and due diligence needed to help you reach a decision.

 

How does the process work if we want to go ahead?

1. You sign the agreement to proceed.  This can be signed online.
2. We take a few days to sort logistics (assigning a lead paraplanner, opening your accounts on the system etc).
3. We then invite you and your team to a welcome session.
4. This is the chance or you and your team to express your expectations to us.
5. After this, you can start submitting work.
6. As a retained client, we will send you monthly updates on the status of your account, or more frequently if you request it.

 

How are you able to process LOAs and get information about clients’ policies for us?

When you engage us, we have a paragraph in our agreement where you instruct us to act as your agent for the duration of the agreement.

As such, we become part of your team.

 

Why do you ask for monthly payments?

We ask for monthly payments in order to help us manage capacity.

As a service business, our standards mean everything to us.  Just look at the feedback scores we get from existing clients.  This is because retained clients always come first.

We do understand some would rather not pay a monthly fee, so we do offer an option for non-retained clients too.

 

Do you offer a test case?

This is tricky!

If we offered a product, you could easily test that to see if it fits. 

Being a service, however, the very nature of this is one of collaboration and collegiate cooperation, so we are expecting to shape and mould the service to match your needs over time. 

A test case is therefore blind, so we are not likely to impress you very much on day one! 

We do, however, recognise that people do want to try before they buy, so we offer you the chance to engage us without having to commit to the retainer.

Nonetheless, if you are able to give really clear instructions, we should be able to give you a good idea of what we do.

 

How do you ensure compliance with GDPR?

Marketing, Information use and Security, and Human Resources:

We manage our marketing compliance in the two main areas of marketing; to existing clients, and to prospective clients.  We have relevant policies and Privacy Notices in place.

We only process the Personal Data to the extent, and in such a manner, as is necessary for the Business Purposes in accordance with our Customer's written instructions.

We understand that information stored on IT infrastructure or moving between infrastructure is highly vulnerable. We ensure that we manage information in terms of retention and restriction, use of information technology, information quality and we have appropriate security controls. We review our security controls regularly.

We are constantly vigilant in our collection and management of the personal and sensitive personal information of employees and prospective employees. We manage the information in the following categories: recruitment information; employment records; and employee health information. All our employees are fully aware of how and where we store their data, and with whom it is shared, and all have access to the data we hold on file for them. 

Our employees

We have procedures in place to inform all employees of the confidential nature of Personal Data, of our policies and obligations, and to ensure that they have read, understood and accepted these. Any changes to policies and/or procedures are communicated to all staff and further training is provided and documented and available to review.

New employees are informed about our policies and obligations as part of their onboarding process.

Complaints, data subject access requests and breaches

We notify our Customers within 2 working days if we receive a request from a Data Subject for access to their Personal Data or to exercise any of their related rights under the Data Protection Legislation.

We record all breaches and near-misses which have occurred of whatever nature. Breaches are reported to our Customers within 24 hours of us becoming aware of the breach, and to the supervisory authorities, if required, within 72 hours.

Our breach and near-miss logs are reviewed quarterly to assess the robustness of our controls.

Service providers

We ensure that we have agreements in place with our service providers who process personal or sensitive personal information, and with those who may have access to Personal Data we hold while fulfilling their obligations under their service contracts with ourselves.

 

What specific risks, constraints and dependencies might crop up and how will these be managed jointly?

Set Up

• Templates
  • Report – this needs to be fully functioning for every scenario.  A mailable document.
  • Review – this needs to include suitability text for buy, sell and hold recommendations.
  • Data harvest – there can be a temptation to get as little information as possible, but this risks missing important details.
  • Service proposition documents – understanding the service the client will receive means we can determine the relationship ongoing.
  • Centralised Investment Proposition documents – the ability to look tactically at what a client has is dependent on a good CIP process.  We believe a client goes THROUGH a CIP not INTO a CIP.
  • Advice process documents – if we can be sure the processes the advisers are meant to follow, we can ensure they follow them and don’t cut corners.
  • Compliance process – we can collaborate directly with your compliance department for this.
  • System manuals – you might use the same systems that we are familiar with, there are likely to be idiosyncrasies in the way the system is used.  We need to know what these are.
  • Procedure and training documents – consistency is the best way to reduce risk.
  • Style guides – your brand needs to be reflected in everything we do, so we need style guides to follow.

Ongoing

• Full Fact-find – COBS 9.2 determines the detail that an adviser needs to know about a client in order to be able to provide a personal recommendation. At the same time, we believe the more we know about a client, the more personalised our work will feel, and therefore the more engaged the client will be.

• Risk profile – people sometimes view risk profile as a mechanism to determine the maximum risk to take.  We feel it is better served as a mechanism for managing client’s expectations. Often, poorly managed expectations are what leads to complaints, and complaints get upheld where there is insufficient information to support suitability.

• Client objectives – these are the most important part of knowing a client.  Without clearly defined, individual objectives, ideally in the client’s own words, it is impossible to build a personal recommendation that would stand up to any challenge for suitability.

• Instructions from the adviser – often the adviser will have a clear idea of what they want to achieve in a case but may not have the mechanism to record it.  We encourage clear, detailed instructions which can then be checked by proofreaders and file checkers to ensure they have been carried through for the file.

 

What do we need to have ready before we start working together?

Ultimately, we have helped firms with pretty much every part of their business, so if something isn’t done or ready, it's not a problem.  We’ll just roll our sleeves up and help you do it.

If we are going to hit the ground running, there are a few bits we need.

Set Up

• Templates

  • New client report.

  • Existing client review.

  • Data harvest.

  • Service proposition documents – should already be in place.

  • Centralised Investment Proposition documents – should already be in place.

  • Advice process documents – should already be in place.

  • Compliance process – we can collaborate directly with your compliance department for this.

  • System manuals – should already be in place.

  • Procedure and training documents – should already be in place.

  • Style guides – should already be in place.

Ongoing

• Full fact-find – will be completed for each case.

• Risk profile – will be completed for each case.

• Client objectives – will be completed for each case.

• Instructions from the adviser – will be completed for each case.