We’re focused on expanding and growing our platform to deliver on our ambition to become the market-leading digital platform provider. Based on your feedback, we’re continually improving our platforms’ products, service and digital experience. Take a look at our latest updates below, you can find more detail and view all our recent improvements in the dropdowns.
ISA flexibility - an even more flexible way to save
We’ve introduced ISA flexibility, so your clients can make the most of their annual ISA allowance on the Aegon Platform. Your clients can now withdraw and replace funds in the same tax year without affecting their annual allowance – giving more control over their savings.
We've streamlined our DFM process and expanded our DFM range
To meet the increasing demand for DFM model portfolio services, we’ve our DFM range to over 80, with the addition of Titan Asset Management Ltd and P1 Investment Management Limited. And, to make it easier to link your clients to a DFM’s model portfolio experience we recently automated our DFM fee instruction process.
It’s now easier to manage your client’s account online
You can view your joint Aegon Platform clients’ documents online and it’s easier to update your clients’ access and move between view only and transact access.
What's new?
Following our recent improvements to Aegon Retirement Choices (ARC) annual statements, we've rolled out some changes to bulk transaction history, and made it easier to manage discretionary fund managers model portfolios — for both ARC and Aegon Platform. You can find out more below.
We’re listening to your feedback and prioritising ways we can improve our digital journeys and make it easier for you to do business:
- E-signature and signature free processes – we’ve extended our e-signature and signature-free processes by adding more forms to our list of accepted processes.
- We've added HelloSign to our list of providers – following your feedback, we've added HelloSign to our list of e-signature providers to help support your business. Take a look at our updated Sending client forms to us by email.
- Improved support and contact – following our recent improvements, please continue to visit our Support and contact page to benefit from our most up-to-date support material.
To improve the service experience we deliver to you and your clients, we’re focusing on getting the fundamentals right, we’re doing this by:
Listening to your feedback – you’ve been telling us what we do well and where we can improve, helping us to drive and prioritise change.
Investing in technology – our technology needs to keep evolving to deliver for you and your business. Over the next two years we’re investing significantly in our technology.
Mapping and improving our key processes end to end – change starts with a clear understanding of our platform processes, so we're committed to mapping three key processes end to end each quarter. The findings will feed into our platform development roadmap, delivering continual enhancements to your platform experience. By the end of 2023 we'll have mapped over 40% of our platform processes end to end.
This is in addition to our recent changes:
- We've recruited over 150 new colleagues in our contact teams and complaint handling with ongoing training and development, so you receive a consistent service no matter who you speak to.
- Three centres of excellence across retail, workplace and customer, as well as improved call routing, making it easier to speak to the right person, first time.
- We know you want your questions to be answered quickly and accurately, so we've increased the size of our web chat and phone teams, resulting in 37% more calls being answered each day in Q1 2023, compared to Q1 2022.
- We've streamlined our email channels to make sure your questions are answered quicker.
- We've also introduced a dedicated mailbox for bereavements, supporting your clients during a difficult time and our dedicated transfers out mailbox is now live.
We regularly ask customers to let us know how likely they are to recommend us to a friend or colleague, through our Net Promoter Score (NPS) survey. This industry-wide method of measuring customer satisfaction helps us understand areas we need to focus on. We're pleased to say that the recent improvements we've made are making a real difference, resulting in our NPS score increasing by three points over a six month period (May 2023 compared to December 2022).
You'll see continual improvements to your service experience, including additional automation across key processes and ongoing recruitment.
Aegon Platform – Introducing ISA flexibility for an even more flexible way to save [June]
We’ve introduced ISA flexibility, so your clients can make the most of their annual ISA allowance on the Aegon Platform.
Your clients can now withdraw and replace funds in the same tax year without affecting their annual allowance – giving more control over their savings.
Aegon Retirement Choices and Aegon Platform – no more DFM charge instruction form [November]
We've implemented a key change to streamline our discretionary fund manager (DFM) process to make it easier for you to add and remove clients to a DFM model portfolio.
Our new process applies the agreed fee between you and the DFM for the model. Any new requests for adding or removing clients to a DFM model portfolio no longer requires a Discretionary fund management charge instruction form, which makes it simpler for you to link/unlink clients, to and from, a DFM model portfolio.
You'll now only need to enter the DFM charge during a new business quote and apply. This is so you can disclose the DFM fee to your client with their illustrations.
Please note that all current clients within a DFM model portfolio will remain linked to the DFM and will pay the fee that you've agreed with the DFM and confirmed to us.
Aegon Retirement Choices – Changes to bulk transaction history [September]
We've recently made two key changes to our bulk transaction history:
Added ISIN codes and instrument name to pending trades and updated ISIN codes to CASH for cash transactions.
We now break down the value of each transaction to fund-level, rather than just to portfolio level.
We hope the changes will make it easier for you to identify cash movements and improve client reporting.
Aegon Platform – Changes to bulk transaction history [September]
We recently rolled out some changes to our bulk transaction history — adding pending trades and income-generating funds held in your clients' accounts.
We hope you start to see more accuracy in client reporting and it's easier to identify and form a clear strategy for drawdown, regular or ad hoc income — there for whenever your clients need it.
Aegon Retirement Choices – Improved drawdown annual review statements [August]
Acting on your feedback, our drawdown annual review statements now include both SIPP and drawdown wrappers to provide you and your clients with a more comprehensive overview of their pension.
Please note that for the small number of clients in drawdown with Secure Retirement Income, the drawdown annual review statements will continue to only include the drawdown wrapper only.
Aegon Platform – View joint documents online on Aegon Platform [July]
You and your clients can now view joint account documents online, making it quicker and easier to keep track of your client's account.
Aegon Platform – Improved regular contribution set up on Aegon Platform [July]
You told us it wasn’t always clear what date your client’s first direct debit will be collected. As a result, we’ve updated the online journey to make sure the date you select will always be the date we collect your client’s regular contribution.
Aegon Platform – Greater control for view only and view and transact access for your clients on Aegon Platform [May]
You can now manage your clients access and switch between view only and view and transact access as and when you require.