Momentum amongst providers to switch to a digital letter of authority process has quickly picked up pace as Origo has proven that moving to a digital letter of authority can benefit their business, as well as advisers and their clients, the Fintech says.
Substantial time and resource savings when handling this administrative task, have been experienced among early adopters of Origo’s Unipass letter of Authority service, with cost savings of up to 50% on existing, manual letter of authority processing, the fintech reports.
Key areas have been identity validation, as the service incorporates the company’s Unipass technology, and assured delivery with progress tracking, which has significantly reduced the need for advice firms to make follow up calls.
The benefits not only make providers easier to do business with, it also positively impacts their net zero targets, the fintech says.
“Through live use of Unipass Letter of Authority, we’ve proven that the switch to digital for providers is commercially viable,” says Origo CEO Anthony Rafferty.
“Seeing the service improvements, costs savings and environmental impact that can be made through the ULoA service, I’m pleased to say our onboarding pipeline has grown substantially, with a 16-strong and growing provider live adoption group, of which 9 leading companies are now signed to the service.”
Rafferty continues: “Providers want to make doing business with them as easy and cost efficient as possible, for all parties. This should apply across all aspects of the business – front end and back end. Current letter of authority processes are largely manual and paper and postage heavy, causing delays and frustration. But this can be swiftly turned around using a digital process, which we’ve now proven to make commercial sense too. From our user experience it’s clear where the benefits are primarily being realised.
“The majority of the costs incurred in the letter of authority process are typically in the vetting of the requests received. In a non-digital process, requests are mainly received via email or post. With customer security paramount, each request requires validation to ensure it is from a bona fide source. This creates resource and cost issues as well as extending the time it takes to process the LoA request. The length of time the LoA process takes is a key frustration for advisers.
“ULoA incorporates Unipass Identity, our secure identity system used across the industry in provider and advice firm operations. With requests coming in digitally and through this trusted source, the time involved in handling, and so progressing requests, is significantly reduced.
“Further savings are made in the significant reduction in follow up calls and requests. Improved transparency of the process, with assured delivery, significantly reduces follow up calls from advisers, who are able to see the current status of their letter of authority request through the service, so avoiding the need to phone for an update.
“This frees up time, for both providers and advice firms, to focus on more value-driven tasks for their businesses.”
Using ULoA’s digital solution, the need for paper and postage also is significantly reduced, helping providers’ hit their net zero targets.
Rafferty adds: “This is not a service that can be put together overnight. When launching a successful technology service into the financial services industry there is a lot of hard work goes into not just building the tech, but creating momentum for what it delivers, especially in the back-office space. Providers want to see real-world results before they will adopt the technology, but you can’t show results until someone is using the service.
“Our thanks to our early adopters – Aviva, Legal & General, Royal London, James Hay, LV= and Scottish Widows platform – for taking the lead and helping to give us the evidence needed that Unipass Letter of Authority can deliver significant benefits for providers, as well as advisers and their clients.”
