Not simply fixing for returns

For years, Canada’s wealth business has been transitioning from an emphasis on investing to the broader work of complete monetary planning. That motion gained even larger momentum up to now few years as COVID-19 lockdowns sharpened folks’s give attention to mortality and their life goal.

“Advisors are now not simply fixing for returns for shoppers,” Smith says. “They’ve to consider longevity danger, given individuals are residing longer, or how shoppers can effectively draw down their capital in retirement, or how they may help shoppers effectively switch their property to their kids or to charity.”

For a lot of advisors, that represents a geometrical enhance in complexity. From specializing in conventional funds, ETFs and portfolio merchandise, they’ve to lift their data base to incorporate segregated funds with property planning advantages, insurance coverage merchandise for tax-minimization methods, and accumulation annuities that create lifetime earnings and assist mitigate longevity danger.

Solar Life International Investments is already a pacesetter in retirement and property planning options, Smith says, with a platform that features each funding and insurance-based merchandise. However to assist keep away from overwhelming advisors with data, it wanted to take a tech-driven strategy – going past the two-dimensional world of printed pages and LCD screens to 1 the place advisors can interact meaningfully with excessive volumes of advanced data.

With the brand new VR-enabled platform, advisors can perceive Solar Life International Investments’ options in a extra immersive manner. As Smith describes it, the VR house was constructed with completely different zones, together with a bit round companies and instruments, a bit the place advisors can shortly join with wholesalers, a studying space with quite a few completely different alternatives to earn CE credit, and one portion dedicated to thought management and information.