Tech Review: Novia

This week Mark Loosmore of AT8 Group discovers the secrets behind wrap newcomer Novia.

In the past few months, we have reviewed platforms with the backing of powerful parents, such as product providers and fund managers, and we have looked at platforms closely aligned to the IFA market, most notably Nucleus with its IFA shareholding. This week, we were pleased to have a chance to view a demonstration and talk to the management of Novia, a company that makes much of being independent of both provider and adviser ownership.

Bright young thing

Novia is a relatively new platform, launched early in 2009 after a development that started in 2008. It is funded through private equity and individual investors. Its assets under ­administration (AUA) are still relatively small, at more than £600m. However, it now has 450 firms signed up and hopes to add another £650m to £750m to its AUA this year.

The team at Novia positions its proposition as a combination of the highest service levels (akin to that of the other smaller platforms) with leading edge ­technology
(rivalling the larger platforms). We are told that Novia has consistently been at the top (in one quarter it was second from top) of the Platforum service ratings, which would back up the service claims, and from the demonstration we saw, the software itself appears impressive.

Its platform is built on the GBST technology (previously known as InfoComp), which is one of the largest platform technology suppliers, bringing its services up to the northern hemisphere from Australia, where wraps are a well-established and mature part of the advisory support process.

Indeed, GBST powers many of the leading platforms in Australia. In choosing to use a mainstream technology supplier at the heart of its solution, Novia has signalled it is in the platform race for the long term: building a scalable solution that performs well. Indeed, while the solution is not the most functional, we have seen it was one of the fastest, smoothest and well-structured platforms we have reviewed so far.

The data collection throughout the platform is intelligent and dynamically adjusts, validating the data at point of field entry and hiding unnecessary questions. The solution, being from an enterprise background, also has true straight through processing (STP) at its heart. There are no manual workarounds, requiring re-keying of data into other systems behind the scenes, which ensures accuracy of data from point of collection to submission for execution.

The usability of the solution looks good. A clear navigation structure exists with a core menu of modules in a navigation bar at the top of the screen and a dynamic navigation bar at the side of the screen that alters according to the wrap, process or client that the user is working on. When the user drops into a process such as a new business case, a breadcrumb trail is used to keep the user informed as to where in the process they are and how much further they have to go.