Continually improving our platform

Ongoing charges made easy

We’ve introduced a new Manage charges journey that makes it quicker and easier to update ongoing adviser charges. From the Client summary screen, you can amend or remove charges for each product – all in the intuitive, streamlined design you've come to expect from ARC.. Getting started is simple:

• On the Client summary screen, select Manage charges.. You can then choose ongoing adviser charge, annual charge, or both (if your client is still on the upgrade price).
• Decide if your client remains on the upgrade price or move to the new business price.
• Select the product(s) you’d like to manage the ongoing adviser charge for, or choose Select all.
• Amend or remove the ongoing adviser charges.

Historic valuations made easier

In the Product Summary > Investments tab, you can now:

• Choose any valuation date you need
• Download a report that reflects the value as of that specific date

This update makes it simpler for you and your clients to review historic values and provide accurate information when it matters most.

Top five clients and advisers - non-adviser users

Based on feedback, we’ve introduced a new feature for non-advised users to make it easier to see clients at a glance:

• Top five clients at a glance: Non-adviser users can now instantly see their top five clients from their dashboard, based on access across advisers and the branch associations they've set up.
• Quick access to a full client list:  We’ve added a View all clients link to the bottom of the section for quick access to more clients.
• Top five clients/advisers: Anyone with non-adviser view or transact with a firm view permissions can toggle between Top 5 Clients and Top 5 advisers, using a new tab.

To make signing in smoother, we've made some technical changes to multi-factor authentication to further improve device recognition. This means fewer prompts for you and your clients within trusted time windows:

• 18 hours for advisers
• Seven days for clients

Streamlining user administration 

We’ve added new features to make it easier for your firm to manage access and edit personal details. Under Role status (previously account status) on the Account page, users in your firm with the User administration permission will be able to:

• Remove roles: a role can be removed from a user’s account without affecting any other accounts they have and use to log in. It's easy to reinastate the role by sending the user an activation email.
• Delete roles: a users role can be deleted if it’s no longer needed. The role will be deleted immediately and can’t be reactivated. This feature is handy if an activation email has been sent in error.
• Edit personal details: it’s now quick and easy to update the Personal details of Non adviser, DFM and Employer users – just select the Edit personal details button. If a user has more than one role (for example, Non-adviser and Employer), the details will update across all roles. 
• Single sign-on edit personal details: Paraplanners and other non-adviser users that single sign-on to the Aegon Platform, can now have their personal details updated by their user administrator on ARC and the changes will be updated on the Aegon Platform.

Client search

You might have spotted we've moved the client search field to the top of your dashboard, but did you know you can now search by National Insurance number too? 

Online nomination of beneficiaries.

Your clients with a SIPP or Drawdown product can now add or edit their beneficiaries quickly and easily from their Client summary screen, making it even easier for them to take control of their pension savings. You can view any beneficiaries nominated after March 2023 and you’ll soon have the ability to add and manage beneficiaries.

 Product summary screens improvements 

Based on your feedback, we've introduced useful new features:

• You can now  view pension protection details in your client's SIPP Product summary screen, including lifetime allowance pension protection – primary,  lifetime allowance – enhanced, LTA enhancement factor, and fixed protection 
• You and your clients can view drip-feed drawdown income details at a glance. To view the income amount, tax free cash payment, payment frequency, the date of next payment, bank details, and tax code, just open up the SIPP drawdown product summary screen.
• We've added a label to help you quickly identify beneficiary drawdown pensions and a new Tax considerations section will help you identify which clients may need to pay tax on income from a beneficiary drawdown pension.

Five key improvements

In September 2024 we introduced five key improvements as part of our commitment to continually improve your platform experience:

1. You can now use one user ID and password to view your ARC, One Retirement and/or Aegon Platform clients. You'll also be able to access Report Zone and, depending on your permissions, transact and carry out user administration tasks, using the same login details.
2. It's now easy to compare the current investment allocation to your chosen investment strategy and view pending trades - just navigate to the Investments tab of a client's product summary.
3. Non-adviser users can now instantly see which adviser is linked to a client in the Client details section of a client's product summary.
4. You asked us to reintroduce the Switch summary, so you can now find it in the Change existing investments request.
5. You also told us that it took too long to select investments for your clients, so we've significantly improved the response time in the Investment selection screens.

Dashboard improvements

You can now update email addresses easily, access restricted share classes quicker and we’ve added client IDs to the Client summary screen to make it easier to search for your clients.

Company and trustee access

We’ve rolled out the new experience to companies and trustees, so they can benefit from a more secure, intuitive online experience.

We’re investing in technology and automation to become a more focused and efficient business.

Paperless pension cash transfers

We're delighted to share that pension cash transfers from providers who use Origo are now fully online, saving you valuable time.

Extending our opening hours

We've listened to your feedback and extended our opening hours – helping you and your clients get in touch with us at times that work for you.  You can now get in touch from 8.30am to 5.30pm, Monday to Friday.

Digitising verification

We've introduced a new customer verification solution on ARC and One Retirement,  to reduce security risks and speed up the process. Results from our pilot have been very positive, with significant improvements on initial pass rates, good uptake and the successful introduction of a digital biometric solution. Ahead of a full roll out, we're extending the pilot to include even more transactions, including one-off withdrawals and income payments. Find out more

Streamlining transfers in and out

We’re continuing to invest in increased automation of our end-to-end processes to streamline your experience and make it easier to do business with us:

• Introducing withdrawal and transfer out confirmations - to make sure you and your clients know exactly what to expect from us, we've introduced emails to keep you up to date with the progress of key money out requests, like withdrawals and transfers.*  If we have an email address on record, our new automated emails will let you and your Aegon Retirement Choices, Aegon Platform and One Retirement clients know we've received the request, what the next steps are and expected timescales. When the withdrawal or transfer is complete, we’ll send you both a confirmation email. *Email confirmations are currently unavailable for the following transactions: 
  • Aegon Platform - starting or changing a regular withdrawal and setting up an ad-hoc withdrawal.
  • Aegon Retirement Choices and One Retirement - adding a benefit crystallisation event.                                                                                                                                                                                 
• To improve the availability of transfer information, we’ve increased the number of  fund managers who send us daily fund reconciliations.
• We’re focused on automating asset transfers and removing manual intervention. To remove manual processes and speed up transfers, we’ve increased the number of fund managers who use Equisoft (formerly Altus transfer gateway).

Closing products with zero balance

You told us you'd like us to fully close platform products with a zero balance, so your clients don’t receive unnecessary documents. We listened, and as a result now close your client's product if their balance has been zero, with no activity on the account for 12 months or more.

Support at the moments that matter

• Our customer-facing teams have received refresher empathy training focused on how to interact with customers at each stage of grief.  
• We’ve also enhanced our Bereavement, Power of Attorney and Divorce and pension sharing pages to make it easier for your clients to find what they need to know and which documents we need to see.

Client self-serve: ISA and GIA

If you’ve given your client Transact access, they can now open a new ISA and GIA  (Gate 2 +), giving you more time to focus on giving advice.. When they open a new GIA or ISA they can choose to make:

• single and regular payments, or both, into the GIA.
• single and regular payments, transfers, or all three, into the ISA.

ARC Junior SIPP

Whether your clients are looking at ways to give a child a head start, or to help with their tax-efficient intergenerational wealth planning, our Junior SIPP quote and apply is now available to you on ARC.

Offshore bond partnerships

We've partnered with Utmost Wealth Solutions and Canada Life International to give your clients access to their offshore bonds through our ARC GIA, allowing you to manage your clients' investment objectives in line with the rest of their wealth.

Regular payment updates are online

It’s now just a few simple steps to update regular payments into a client’s GIA, ISA or SIPP – from the Product summary screen, you and clients with Transact access can:

• Increase or decrease the payment amount
• Change the bank account details
• Cancel the payment

Ad hoc rebalance 

It's now even easier to maintain and optimise your clients' investment strategies, with the ability to request an Ad hoc rebalance for assets held outside a model in the Manage investment strategy journey.  

Fast and accurate proportionate switching

We've automated proportionate switch calculations - streamlining cash management and making it easier for you and your clients to respond quickly to market changes. In the Change existing investments process, simply follow these three simple steps:  

1. select monetary or percentage
2. enter the investment amount
3. select the Apply proportionately button to calculate the values.

It's fast, accurate and designed to save valuable time when your clients want to access their savings. 

ISA flexibility

We’ve introduced ISA flexibility, so your clients can make the most of their ISA allowance. Your clients can now withdraw and replace money in the same tax year without affecting their annual allowance – giving more control over their savings. 

GIA to GIA transfer process

 You can now transfer investments between GIAs held by different clients.  

Cash ringfencing

We’ve introduced a new feature to switches to make sure your clients' money is where it needs to be, when it needs to be there. You and your clients can now set aside cash from the proceeds of a switch to fund:

• SIPP tax-free cash
• Regular income from SIPP (drawdown), GIA or ISA
• Platform, advice and DFM fees. 

In the Change existing investments journey, when you’ve allocated the sale proceeds to cash just choose Add ringfenced cash and allocate the amount to ringfence against the purpose you need. You can view any ringfenced cash at a glance in the Product Summary.

We’ve also updated the recurring switch to cash form, making it easier to set aside funds for tax-free cash, pension income, or regular withdrawals from GIAs and ISAs. You can either sell specific assets to be sold, or sell proportionately across an existing investment strategy. To allow time for the sale proceeds to be ringfenced, we recommend choosing a switch date at least five working days before your client' income date.

Online ISA and GIA withdrawals

It's now quicker and easier for your clients to access their ISA and GIA savings. To make an online one-off withdrawal, select your clients ISA or GIA and follow these steps:

• From the Product summary screen, select More actions>One-off withdrawal
• Select Full withdrawal or Partial withdrawal
• For partial withdrawals, you can either select specific investments to sell or choose a proportionate sale – excluding cash from the sale is an additional option.

Tailored SIPP illustration

You told us you want to provide your clients with a more tailored SIPP illustration – so we’ve introduced an additional option for uncrystallised benefits, produced to your client’s target retirement date. You can also download the combined review illustration for both uncrystallised and crystallised elements of a pension.

Pension income reliability

It's vital your clients receive their pension income on time, so we made a commitment to improve income reliability. We've delivered on our promise with a new solution, which is already making a positive difference.

To avoid delays, even if sell transactions on your client’s ARC and/or One Retirement SIPP haven’t settled, we'll make the payment. This change means your clients can be reassured they'll receive their regular drawdown income when they expect it. Take a look at our frequently asked questions to find out more. 

Improved expectation setting

To make sure you and your clients know exactly what to expect from us, we've introduced emails to keep you up to date with the progress of key money out requests, like withdrawals and transfers.

Product reporting tool enhancements 

To help you have even more detailed conversations with your clients about the performance of their products, we’ve added money-weighted and time-weighted return to the Product reporting tool.

We’ve also rolled out new customisation features to help you personalise your client conversations.

• Add your own analysis, recommendations or insights to the new commentary fields.
• Personalise the report with your client’s name or a name of your choice.

The tool now offers customisation options in every section:

• Table of total value of all products – easily select a date range or choose your own. Plus, choose which products to display.
• Returns – choose from cumulative, time-weighted and/or money-weighted returns for deeper insights.
• Other key values for all products – tailor your view by selecting investment income, adviser charges and/or DFM charges. We’ll always show the annual charge so you can see how much your client is paying.

Excess reportable income report  

Our Excess reportable income (ERI) report gives you the information your clients need to calculate ERI (the amount of profit their offshore reporting fund(s) held in the General Investment Account earned beyond the income paid to them as dividends or interest). This allows your clients to report the ERI on their tax return. You can access the latest quarterly report on our support pages:

• Aegon Retirement Choices
• Aegon Platform 

Drip-feed drawdown report

We listened to your feedback and created a  report to make it easier for you to see at a glance which clients have drip-feed drawdown, when payments are due and if a payment hasn’t been made.

We’ve split the report into three categories – Drip-feed drawdown mandate, Drip-feed drawdown payments and Ad-hoc tax-free cash payments, making the information easy to dissect. You can also view a history of your clients’ previous drip-feed drawdown payments based on your chosen date range.

You can access the report through Report Zone > Product wrappers opened and held > Drip-feed drawdown and Tax-free cash report.