Other Financial Services and Insurance Workers and Brokers
This unit group covers Financial Services and Insurance Workers and Brokers not elsewhere classified. It includes Investment Administrators and Paraplanners.
A Thursday in the planning back office
You are a paraplanner and investment administrator at a financial planning firm, preparing documents and processing client instructions for the advisers. It is 11am. Three advisers have documents due by Friday, a client has emailed an instruction and the compliance check on yesterday's file is still waiting.
Choose what you would do. Then see what happens. There are often good reasons for each choice.
I have a client meeting at two and the summary needs a couple of numbers updated from last week. I do not have time to double-check. Can you just do it and print it?
Update, check against the source and send Neil a list of changes
He reads the list in two minutes and trusts the page. Showing what changed makes his job easier and your work safer.
Update them and print it, since Neil is the expert and the meeting is at two
One number is wrong, and Neil does not see it until the client points it out. Reviewing your own work is not the same as someone else looking at it.
Ask Neil to wait until you have time to do a full recheck tomorrow
That is careful, but the meeting is at two. Neil goes in with old figures. A quick and honest check today was better than a perfect one tomorrow.
Please sell my units in the growth fund today and send the money to this new bank account. I am travelling so I cannot call. Please do it as soon as possible. Regards.
Process the instruction at once, since it came from his usual email address
The email was from a scammer who copied the address. The money is gone and the firm has to explain. Urgency and a changed account are warning signs.
Reply to the email asking him to confirm the details of the new account
The scammer replies at once with confirmation. It looks reassuring, and it is the same person. Use a different channel from the one you doubt.
Hold it, ring Mr Barakat on his file number and tell the adviser
He answers on the file number and says he sent nothing. The scam is reported and his money is safe. A call to a trusted number is the strongest check.
The compliance checklist is a pain and the client is waiting. Can you tick the boxes and say it is done? You know the file is fine. I will sign it later.
Say you will tick it once you have actually checked each item on the list
Tess sighs but waits an hour. The file has one item that needed fixing. The check was right, but you could have offered to prioritise the quickest items first.
Tick the boxes to help her out, since you trust the file and she is busy
A tick without a check is a false record. If anything is missing later, your name is against it.
Offer to check it now, starting with the items that matter most
You finish in twenty minutes, and Tess signs it. She would rather wait than carry a gap. Being quick and being careful work together.
How it went
At five the drafts are out, the instruction has been caught and the files are tidy. Paraplanning is exact, behind-the-scenes work that keeps advisers accurate and clients safe. Would you enjoy being the second pair of eyes?
This is a simplified, fictional situation to help you explore. It is not professional instruction or a test of your ability.
Case study: The figure that did not match
A fictional case set in the back office of a financial planning firm with six advisers.
The situation
Alicia was a paraplanner at Harbourview Planning, preparing a draft advice document for an adviser who was about to meet a client. The adviser had asked for the plan to be ready by three. As she checked the client's details against the file, she noticed that the retirement date in the plan was two years earlier than the date in the client's last email. The error was small on the page but would change every projection after it.
What they did
She did not quietly change the date. She flagged it to the adviser and showed him the email and the plan side by side, asking which was correct. The adviser rang the client, who confirmed she was thinking of retiring later. Alicia reworked the projections and added a note on the file. She also asked the adviser to confirm any key assumptions before she started drafting from then on.
How it turned out
The meeting went ahead with the right figures. The client never knew how close the first draft had been. The adviser started a checklist of assumptions that Alicia reviewed before every draft.
What would you do?
- Why do you think Alicia asked the adviser instead of correcting the date herself?
- What would happen if the wrong date had reached the client?
- How could a team make small errors easier to catch?