Tech Review: Gaudi

This week, AT8’s Mark Loosmore met with Gaudi, a company that provides an outsourced capability to enable IFAs to set up their own SIPP propositions

The SIPP market is not one we have written about very often but it is a growing market – which in this day and age is a positive and perhaps even exciting place to be! There are currently 580,000 SIPPs in the market – a growth of 30% over the last year and this equates to £70bn of assets under management. SIPP Guru John Moret predicts that within five years the market will reach one million SIPPS.

Out-of-date

Currently, there are a great number of SIPPs sitting on legacy systems that cannot be easily accessed by the parties involved. Clients are often remote from the information they need to see and their advisers are usually no better off.

Simple tasks like getting access to a summary of premiums put into a SIPP can take time, with the adviser having to phone around different providers for information and then collate disparate paper statements into a single summary statement, which is then printed off and posted to the client – time consuming and cumbersome.

Recent research from companies like Mintel has shown that what consumers want is more choice and control over their pensions and that they see technology as an integral part of achieving this. Paper is simply too slow in a world where consumers expect immediacy with the responses to their actions.

Gaudi was set up two years ago and has been developing its SIPP proposition behind closed doors until its soft launch at the end of last year. It has a refreshing approach and has none of the legacy issues that holds many established providers back.

We spoke to the CEO, Clifton Melvin and the operations director Patrick Vaughan. Although we had not met Vaughan before, we have known Melvin in various roles over the years. Melvin is steeped in the financial services industry with an impressive CV including the role of CEO at Winterthur Life before its acquisition by AXA. Vaughan’s CV is more SIPP-focused, including running the SIPP operation at Capita.

Single system

The Gaudi approach is to ensure all the data is held in a single system, available to be accessed via the web. Advisers, fund managers, product providers, service agents, and the customer can all have access depending on the permissions that are granted by the system.

Integrations with other systems in the distribution chain are being put in place, including adviser back office systems and wrap platforms. However, the back-office integration currently only extends to ClientAssyst and Advisor Office (AO), while the only platform integrations are to Ascentric, Charles Stanley and its own in-house commercial property portfolio. These integrations need to be extended rapidly to gain traction in the market place.

However, Gaudi is keen to point out that its linkages are determined by the needs of its business partners and further integrations will follow as the market dictates.

Gaudi has several workflows built in that seek to ensure all relevant data is collected and passed to the fund manager. They include support for processes like applying for a new SIPP, pensions transfers and SIPP valuations and so on.

To some extent, the look and feel of the system is dictated by the branding of the SIPP provider. However, in the example we saw, it fitted seamlessly into an IFA’s website brand.

Usability

The usability could do with being clearer as it has moved away from using the navigation controls of a browser to keep the session open and under the control of the system until the process is complete.

We understand this is dynamic but we would have expected the browser controls, like forward and backward buttons, to be replicated in the application and for a process trail or ‘breadcrumb trail’ to be apparent.

With the growing importance of retirement planning and pension provision, we look forward to reporting on its future progress.