The service offers advisers both pre- and post-sales support including fund specific illustrations, applications, valuations, fund dealing and access to a range of calculators and other tools. The firm said offshore valuations will also be available through all the major back-office systems, enabling IFAs to receive the information they want through their own systems.
Furthermore, Scottish Widows has built a functionality to allow advisers to set up a regular online sale to manage the cash account. The firm says a cash account is an integral part of all open architecture offshore bonds, working like a bank account, facilitating all money in (e.g. dividends, rebates, money from encashed funds) and out (e.g. charges, regular and partial withdrawals from the bond).
Setting up a regular sale from investments to fund the cash account helps make sure the cash account stays in credit and with the new services, the regular sale can be set up online either as part of a new business application, or at any point after a policy has been set up.
“As offshore bonds have become more mainstream and the benefits more widely known, advisers rightly expect the same highly rated online service that they get with our onshore bonds,” said Dean Waddingham, managing director of CMI (part of Scottish Widows).
“Our range of online tools and services puts advisers in control, giving them access to the information they need, when they need it. Fundamentally our eCommerce services are designed to make advisers lives easier, more productive and profitable.”
