In reaction to the recent COVID-19 pandemic, much of America is changing the way they work. Many financial services professionals are turning to remote work. Portfolio management, financial planning, and CRM software may already be part of your practice, and if you weren’t already, you are probably becoming well acquainted with video conferencing.
However, financial professionals that work with high net worth investors that invest in alternative investments may find the transition to work-from-home more difficult than they expected. Many alternative investments still largely rely on paper documents that must be mailed or faxed between investors and advisors. Unless you have been giving out your home address or have a fax machine in your house, subscribing clients to alternative investments is going to be a hassle without making a trip to the office or having an ill-advised in-person meeting.
Luckily, recent changes to regulation and technology now allow some alternative investments to be accessed and subscribed to digitally. Altigo, WealthForge’s electronic trade processing platform, is designed to streamline the alternative investment process, replacing paper subscription documents with an online information collection workflow, and eliminating mailing through the use of electronic signature. These changes create an opportunity for brokers and advisors to provide their high net worth clients with alternative investments without leaving the comfort and safety of their home.
In fact, Altigo has already been used in such a case even before COVID-19 forced many of us to work from home. For example, we recently had an Altigo user share with us that he had an investment opportunity for one of his clients that was coming down to the wire. Using Altigo, he was able to input the order, send the subscription package to his client, get it signed, returned, and have it approved by his principal, all in less than 1 hour—without ever needing to leave home.* Compare that experience to a typical paper process that takes weeks to complete and is nearly impossible to do remotely.
After this pandemic has passed, it’s possible that weeks of mandated working from home will change the way many companies choose to operate, with even more remote opportunities offered in the future. One CEO on LinkedIn even went so far as to say, “companies who adopt remote work will replace every company who doesn’t.” Remote work can be offered to future employees as an attractive benefit, and having technology that facilitates that work will be essential to remaining competitive in this changed environment.
ALTIGO MARKETPLACE
FREE DIGITAL PROCESSING FOR RIAS
Registered Investment Advisors can use Altigo to automate subscriptions into a wide variety of alternative investment offerings from well-known sponsors—through a single intuitive platform. Signing up is quick, easy, and free.
*Testimonials reflect these clients' historical experiences with WealthForge's technology and regulatory compliance services and may not be representative of the experiences of all clients or with other services. Testimonials are not a guarantee of future performance or success.
