Retirement planning and financial advisory service Fin-Q Financial Services has ensured the efficient management of its practice administration through the use of prospect, client, portfolio and business process system PROFIDA, with Sybase's Adaptive Server Anywhere (ASA) database as its enabling technology driver.
Designed by financial software developer Computer Science Software, PROFIDA is off-the-shelf software written in Java providing all relevant functionality for the management of clients' personal and portfolio details by brokers, asset managers and financial consultants.
Renowned as the most widely used technology in embedded mobile applications in the world, Sybase ASA is gauged by Gartner to be the database of choice across 75% of the world's financial consulting industry.
"Recognised for its highly effective self-management capabilities, ASA provides the full functionality of a rich enterprise database without the degree of high maintenance traditionally required by database software," says Rob Simpson, MD of Sybase Cape. "ASA is not only exceptionally stable and efficient on hardware usage, it is platform independent, enabling the extension of applications from in-house server-based into the mobile space."
Fin-Q Financial Services is a joint venture between pension fund administrator and asset manager Coris Capital and South African labour movement Solidarity. The company provides a professional advisory service focused specifically on planning and managing retirement and retrenchment portfolios.
"Fin-Q required a lead delivery system that was dynamic and adaptable," says Daniel Putra, MD of Computer Science Software. "The tracking and management of all leads through PROFIDA is crucial to efficient workflow and forms the core of the operation."
The flexibility of PROFIDA enables direct communication with Astute, the first South African financial service exchange hub, providing a link between financial product providers and the databases of intermediaries for portfolio information. Through communication with Astute, policies can be downloaded directly into PROFIDA, providing financial advisors with a thorough overview of the client's portfolio.
This data is immediately integrated with existing client data, enabling financial planning figures to be extracted and a financial needs analysis for the client prepared.
"The most important aspect of our business is the administration and control of leads. PROFIDA's flexibility allows the allocation and quality management of prospects, tracking of reminders and follow-ups and monitoring of the lead-to-client process. We cover the entire country and have a considerable cross-section of clients, so PROFIDA's ability to group clients according to specific requirements or schemes is particularly useful," says Eric Eden, client and practice administrator at Fin-Q.
During the next 12 months PROFIDA's extensibility will be broadened to accommodate remote sites, allowing Fin-Q advisors the convenience of enhanced mobility and immediate access to client data anywhere, at any time.
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