Financial Advisory Service Breakthrough – Financial Alliance Launches Full And Seamless Non-F2F Process With Enhanced Security

COVID-19 or not, financial advisory customers value security and a seamless experience, so does Financial Alliance.

Security matters even more now that online communications are going to be de rigueur in our nation’s fight against COVID-19. As a financial adviser, which is classified as an essential service that must remain open during the COVID-19 circuit breaker period, Financial Alliance carries out services to fulfil customers’ essential needs for insurance and asset management.

Enabling Secure Non-F2F Service

Through Financial Alliance’s fully functional non-F2F advisory process, representatives from Singapore’s leading licensed independent financial adviser can conduct customer meetings and have advisory documentation filled out without requiring the physical presence of the customer. To complete the process, the customer can e-sign the document via a proprietary remote electronic signing capability that captures a live signature far more faithfully than a mouse-drawn signature. The entire non-F2F process is encapsulated within a dual-factor authentication environment, better known as “2FA”. The customer must perform the 2FA verification at the start of the process.

All these serve as an alternative to face-to-face customer meetings without sacrificing security.

“Our non-face-face service capability has become even more crucial at times like this, when even social gatherings of any size are banned,” said Mr Vincent Ee, CEO of Financial Alliance.

“Long before COVID-19, we have been gradually harnessing the benefits of technology. Now, as financial institutions like us have to quickly implement non-face-to-face alternatives to keep our service open, we are actually ready for it.”

Seamless, Efficient & Easy to Use

Mr Ee described a typical online financial planning session this way, “Via a virtual meeting platform initiated by our representative, she and the customer can get to know each other or catch up as if they are meeting physically. Our representative can perform the financial planning systematically. She can also give the customer a good idea of our robust internal technology by demonstrating onscreen the tools we use to select products to match the customer’s requirements and situation. Not only does the session allow real-time verbal communication with video footage, the representative can hand over control of the screen’s content to the customer at any point during the session for the latter to highlight, input or annotate as necessary, enabling active two-way participation that is meaningful and productive. What’s more, our service comes with customer verification, giving our customers more confidence when they engage us. Transparency, security and convenience – these are the value-added qualities our customers gain from our service.”

Not only does the non-face-to-face process work when the both representative and the customer are using touch-screen devices, it also works when a customer is using a non-touch screen monitor to view the session. Such a customer can still e-sign the electronic form using his mobile phone.

Mr Ee added that pilot users within Financial Alliance have found the entire non-F2F customer engagement process easier to use than others they have encountered, despite the additional security layer. This efficiency translates to time saved for both the customer as well as the representative.

Prioritising Quality & Innovation

Mr Ee said, “Quality matters to us. Some customers may accept a financial planning process that is not as secure as ours, but we insist that our customers enjoy the highest security we can offer. In the end, our customers fulfil both goals: You get to stay safely at home, and you get your finances in order through a secure, efficient and transparent process.”

On how the COVID-19 pandemic affects the financial advisory industry, Mr Ee responded, “With physical meetings ground to a sudden halt. life has to carry on. Gaps still need to be fixed or repaired; finances still need to be managed. Financial planning is not new, but that doesn’t mean we should not innovate. We believe we ought to make progressive leaps using technology, and move away from the traditional service methods in the financial advisory industry. COVID-19 is the catalyst to move us to a new norm, and we are fully prepared for it.”