7IM and the world of platforms
A devoted series for all things Platform. Here you can keep up to date with the latest industry updates, new features we’re releasing on the 7IM Platform, and so much more.
Our next chapter
In this episode, we share an update on Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan (OTPP), a global investor with approximately C$250bn in assets, acquiring a majority stake in our business subject to FCA approval and what it means. Plus, it’s award season and we’re delighted to have won several industry accolades.
Hi everyone, and welcome to episode two of The World of Platforms.
I have a couple of things to touch on today, but I just really want to give you a quick update, which I’m sure you haven’t missed, about the ownership of 7IM.
We’re really pleased to announce that Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan is now our owner.
Now, why is it so good to be owned by some Canadian teachers? Well, firstly, you should always believe everything your teachers tell you. But secondly, what we’re really excited about is the buy in that OTPP, as we call them, have to our vision, and critically our platform vision.
They’ve bought in to our business plan, which includes a three-year strong investment into our platform so that we can continue to deliver for you our vision of an unrivalled client experience for both you and your clients.
So exciting times.
Next thing I want to touch on is that it has been awards time, and everyone loves and awards event, especially us, especially when you win. And we’re really excited to be able to let you know that we won two awards, and we were highly commended for another two awards. The first award we won was for Best Retirement Proposition. Now, this one we’re really proud of. We’ve done so much work on our Retirement Income Solution, which is fully embedded in our platform. Hopefully you’ve had the opportunity to see this with the Omnis solutions embedded into that.
It also encompasses the work that we’ve been doing with Just and getting the Secured Lifetime Income product onto the platform as well.
The next award we won was for Best use of Platform Technology. Now this was a joint award that we did with Finio and it was all about the integration that we enable into the chosen back office systems, financial planning systems, cash flow planning systems, whatever you like to use to deliver the financial planning that you want to your clients. This award is all about streamlining how we move valuation and transaction data into those systems. So really exciting for us to be recognised by the industry for these two awards.
The last thing I just want to touch on, it’s really a watch out. Watch out for some breakfasts that are coming up. We’re doing some retirement income planning breakfasts. We’re going to do some deep dives into everything to do with drawdown, whether it’s UFPLUS, tailored drawdown, beneficiary drawdown, flexi-access drawdown, any other drawdown that exists, and walking through some case studies. And really to enable, to bring to life the flexibility that we enable you to deliver to your clients, for clients that are in and at retirement.
So please do watch out for these. Come along, CPD points you’ll get, maybe a bacon butty, or even a vegan butty, but we hope to see you there.
Thank you.
Hello and welcome
In an exclusive series, Verona Kenny shares her excitement to be working with the Openwork Partnership and outlines the three key things we believe make a great Platform to support you and your clients.
Hello, and welcome to the very first episode in our series called The Platform World Series, where we're going to talk to you about all things platform. Think of it kind of like a travel blog, but all about platforms. Now, before I get into our topic today, the first thing I want to say is thank you.
Thank you for selecting 7IM as one of your platform partners. Everyone here at 7IM is so excited to be working with you and your clients to deliver an unrivalled experience to you both. Now, platforms. Platforms and great platforms are built on three key things. The first one being service, the next one being innovation, and the third one being technology.
In each of the episodes, I'm going to go into detail on each of these, but today I just want to quickly touch on technology. Now, at 7IM, we run our own proprietary technology platform. Now what does that mean? It effectively means that we are running a tech shop. Now, as much as I could get all techie on you and start talking about our agile processes and the fact that we use microservices and all various different things, what's the really exciting part about that? It means we’re in control of our own destiny. We set our own priorities, which effectively means you set our priorities. We get feedback. We love feedback. Please keep giving us feedback, and that sets what we're going to do in our development roadmap.
Two things I want to just quickly talk about that we've had direct feedback on, is the ability to pay initial fees on regulars and also some improvements to our illustrations. Both of those are currently works in progress, so watch this space. Service and innovation are the other two things that I’ve mentioned upfront. I'm not going to delve into those today, but I just want to say that service for us is all about people. We've got a great bunch of platform experts that are looking forward to working with you all. And innovation, some fantastic things on that.
Two proof points; 7IMagine, if you haven't already, please check it out, and our Retirement Income Solution, something else to check out. So thank you for listening to our very first episode, more to come. And finally, I just want to sum up where I started, with a great big thank you. We are so excited to be working with you and your clients to deliver you both an unrivalled experience.
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