Salesforce has introduced Shield for its Financial Services Cloud in order to help businesses to meet regulatory requirements.
The tool will be beneficial to those working as financial advisors, retirement plan providers, and insurance agents as it will help them to comply with both existing and emerging industry regulations.
Particularly there is a focus on the US Department of Labor’s Fiduciary Rule, which is aimed at stopping high commissions and fees claimed in the US insurance industry.
The rule will require fiduciaries, such as financial advisors, to make investment recommendations in the best interest of their clients. However, many (43%) of US investors state that they don’t understand the methods by which their advisors make investments.
So Salesforce, along with partners such as Deloitte, will be combining the capabilities of its Financial Services Cloud with Salesforce Shield in order to give firms the ability to capture client interactions and provide their compliance departments with visibility into communications between clients, advisors, agents, and teams.
The company said that features will include the ability to see a 360-degree view of clients with Client Profiles and Client Households. This will allow them to access information such as a client’s other investments, financial circumstances, tax status and more.
Users will be able to create and record communications and use Platform Encryption to encrypt data. The Shield’s Field Audit Trail will also allow for advisors to go back and see the state and value of data on any data or time for up to a decade.
Rohit Mahna, GM of Financial Services, Salesforce, said: At Salesforce, our business is based on helping companies connect with their customers in entirely new ways, including helping advisors to act in the best interest of their clients.
“The opportunity has never been greater for financial services firms to transform and engage with clients in a deeper way.”
Shield was created a year ago and applied to other versions of Salesforce before being added to Financial Services Cloud, which moved into general availability in March 2016.
This development is a sensible one given Salesforce’s close ties with consulting firms and the widespread use of its products in high-regulated industries.
Developing capabilities that are designed to help its customers’ to continue to meet regulatory demands will help to stabilise and improve its position within the financial services sector.
On Monday Sage revealed at its conference that Sage Live, the company's real-time cloud accounting solution will be delivered on Salesforce Lightning. This comes as part of an extended partnership between the two companies.
Pricing for Salesforce Financial Services Cloud starts at $150 per user, per month while Salesforce Shield is priced at a percentage of a customer’s total Salesforce product spend. Components of Shield can be bought together or individually.
