From critiques on layout, frustrations with duplication and annoyance with timing, advisors surveyed for this year’s Planners’ Report Card had a lot to say about how their firms are doing in communicating account information to clients. Advisors are demanding improvements, even at firms that scored high marks for their client account statements.
Advisors at Winnipeg-based Investors Group Inc. were the most pleased with their firm’s client account statements, and they gave their firm a rating of 8.5 in the category. “Our statements are some of the best out there,” says an Investors Group advisor from the Maritimes.
According to Ron Arnst, manager of media relations at Investors Group, the thorough information provided on the statements makes them well received by planners and clients alike. But this happened only because the statements were improved a few years ago to include a “consolidated view of the client’s registered and non-registered holdings, including opening and closing balances for each account, complete transaction details over the quarter, registered contribution and capital gains summaries,” he says.
Investors Group has recently included important client information on its statements. And for clients with both mutual fund and security holdings managed through its MRS platform — the company’s record-keeping system for holdings not in Investors Group — Arnst says the firm will offer consolidated statements in the near future.
However, some of the firm’s advisors are still unhappy. “They’re the best in the industry — but they’re still lousy,” says an advisor in Ontario.
Mississauga, Ont.-based PFSL Investments Canada Ltd. ‘s statements came in second with a rating of 8.4 because the firm has mastered the art of simplicity, advisors say. PFSL provides a basic consolidated transactional statement at yearend. The statement provides only a list of transactions.
“They’re the same as [any other in] the industry,” says a PFSL planner in Ontario. “They’re easy to read and easy to understand, and that’s important.”
But there is one industry-wide issue that PFSL advisors aren’t happy with, and that’s the various statements that clients receive: fund companies provide their own client statements, in addition to the dealer’s account statements. “I’m getting a lot of duplication there,” says a PFSL advisor on the Prairies. “I get four. It’s an unnecessary bunch of statements.”
Clients are also wondering why they’re receiving duplicated information, says Jeff Dumanski, president and chief marketing officer at PFSL. “That’s basically been the comment: ‘Why do I get one that tells me everything and one from each fund company?’ Our opinion has always been ‘Why wouldn’t this fund company statement suffice?’ The Mutual Fund Dealers Association says, ‘No, no, no, you must produce one yourself’.”
Dumanski says PFSL would like to provide one consolidated client statement, noting investment losses and gains and performance numbers for each client’s personal account. But he doesn’t see much point as long as the fund companies are providing the same information.
“We need to have harmonization from the fund-company level and the MFDA level on statements,” Dumanski adds. “We go through the trouble of providing the exact same thing that the fund company does. But we don’t see any benefit except that it’s consolidated on one statement.”
At the other end of the spectrum, advisors at Toronto-based Assante Corp. are less than impressed with their client account statements. Assante advisors rated the firm’s statements highest in importance, at 8.9, while rating the actual statements at only 5.7.
“They’re neither accurate nor readable,” says an Assante advisor in Ontario. Adds an Assante advisor on the Prairies: “There are detail errors and they’re poorly laid out. They don’t seem to be a priority.”
However, the firm will soon be taking action to rectify this, according to Joe Canavan, chairman and CEO. He says the firm will have new client account statements out by the third quarter to replace those being using since the firm was acquired by CI Fund Management Inc. in November 2003.
Assante’s new one-stop account statements will be a basic account statement, but will contain much more information than the current transactional statements, Canavan says. They will show holdings, what assets are at specific points in time, asset splits and types of investments, in addition to transactions.
By yearend, Investors Group, PFSL and Assante all plan to have online account statements that will contain more information than their paper counterparts. Assante’s “will tell clients what their accumulated capital gains are and what they should plan for from a tax standpoint,” says Canavan. IE