The Client

Aligned Capital Partners Inc. (ACPI) is an independent securities dealer with head office in Burlington, Ontario and branch locations across Canada. Originally founded in 1987, it was built on the premise of aligning the interests of the investor, advisor and dealer. A member of the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada (IIROC), ACPI knows full well the disclosure requirements and challenges facing the investment industry.

The Challenge

The Fund Facts is a document that gives investors key information about a mutual fund in clear language they can understand, and at a time relevant to their investment decision. Current regulation requires advisors to provide Fund Facts to their clients after purchasing a mutual fund, but there are more than 35,000 Fund Facts documents to choose from. That means the advisor must search for the right Fund Facts document and then send it to their client. In May, 2016 advisors must send the documents to their clients at or prior to the purchase. This will increase the need for an efficient platform to meet these strict timelines. It could be a logistical nightmare, but this is where InvestorCOM comes in.

“Our advisors have streamlined their processes and achieved operational efficiencies by using a one-stop platform to fulfill their disclosure requirements.”

The Solution

InvestorCOM has helped ACPI significantly. It licensed to ACPI its Fund Facts delivery solution which is a compliance portal that lets the firm’s advisors distribute Fund Facts documents from all the fund companies (there are more than 150 fund managers in Canada and thousands of documents) directly to their clients. This can be done electronically which is far more efficient than what ACPIs advisors used to do.

“Our advisors have streamlined their processes and achieved operational efficiencies by using a one-stop platform to fulfill their disclosure requirements,” says Jack Mastromattei, Chief Operating Officer at ACPI. “In the past, the onus was on the advisor to find the document they needed to deliver. They had to search for it on many different websites made available by mutual fund companies. When they located it, they had to find a way to deliver it to the end investor. If they needed the same document in the future, they had to make sure it hadn’t changed. This was not efficient.”

Mastromattei says the advisors now get all the documents they need in one place, up to date, and with different delivery options. And all actions are logged so head office can track the delivery process and perform regular audits to ensure that disclosure requirements are met.

ACPI stepped up the use of the InvestorCOM platform to a higher level by incorporating its brand, logo and colors on their very own custom InvestorCOM portal. This allowed for a more tailored and customized touchpoint between the advisor and investor. ACPI is also leveraging the platform for its own use by offering several other types of documents for delivery such as account packages for new clients.

“Advisors have achieved 25% time savings over the old process.”

Results

InvestorCOM has provided ACPI with a document delivery platform that satisfies all compliance requirements. It is cost-efficient and saves time. Mastromattei says ACPI advisors have achieved 25% time savings over the old process. In addition, ACPI has taken advantage of the training and support offered by InvestorCOM that is available in different formats, including online videos and web-based training sessions. Says Mastromaeeti: “I would recommend the InvestorCOM platform to any organization looking for a robust, compliant and easy-to-use document delivery solution.”

About InvestorCOM Inc.

InvestorCOM (www.investorcom.com) is an investor communications solutions company that leverages technology to address the evolving disclosure and communications needs of the financial services industry. Among its solutions, InvestorCOM offers a suite of hosted, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) products that allows fund managers and dealers to efficiently create and deliver disclosure, and also marketing documents, to investors.

More Information

To learn more please contact info@Investorcom.com