Services : Case Study : Key Features

Overview

An extranet that provides Independent Financial Advisors with instant key features information exactly tailored to a clients investments.

Background

Franklin Templeton Investments, based at Saltire Court in Edinburgh, is part of the US$190 billion Franklin Templeton Group, one of the world's leading suppliers of financial investment products.

In order to provide clients and brokers with information about their products, Franklin Templeton Investments distribute a paper prospectus for each fund which includes 'Key Features' information - information which must by law be disclosed to investors. This information includes a breakdown of the management charges which are applied to an investment, and an illustration of the effect that those charges will have on the performance of the investment.

In the paper version of the Key Features document, a standard investment amount was assumed, as well as a standard 10-year term. If a broker wanted an illustration of a particular client's investment, then Franklin Templeton Investments would provide this by post or by FAX. The process of creating these 'client-specific' illustrations was a labour-intensive one, and required a member of staff to generate the numeric information using a spreadsheet, and cut and paste this into a word-processor file for printing.

Process

Franklin Templeton Investments asked Electrum to investigate whether the same information could be delivered to brokers over the Internet. The basic requirement was that a broker should be able to type in his client's investment details and instantly see the performance information. An additional but important requirement was that he should be able to obtain a printed version with the same high-quality, Franklin Templeton Investments-branded style and layout as the paper prospectus. The system should also work with Franklin Templeton Investments' existing spreadsheet-based system, and require little or no maintenance.

Electrum developed a system that is so successful, it is now used not only by brokers, but also by Franklin Templeton Investments' in-house staff, who use it to generate client-specific illustrations for those brokers who do not have Internet access. An illustration can be generated in less than a minute, then printed out and FAXed directly to the broker.

Technically, the most difficult aspect of this project was producing the high-quality printed output. Adobe's Acrobat (PDF) format is widely used to deliver such documents over the internet, but is normally used for 'static' documents, whose content never changes. It has no in-built mechanism for adding 'dynamic' content such as the client-specific information in the Key Features documents.

To overcome this problem, Electrum developed a unique system which allows dynamic information to be added to PDF files. The resultant solution allows the bulk of the documents to be created in a WYSIWYG editor such as a word processor, while the dynamic information can be added by the web server in an efficient and timely manner.

This technology is available for licensing. For information about our licensing terms, contact licensing@electrum.co.uk

Update

Electrum's longstanding relationship with Franklin Templeton Investments continues, with the success of each project leading to yet more repeat business. As well as providing Franklin Templeton Investments with project management services, Electrum is currently involved in a new project to automate yet more of Franklin Templeton Investments' document-production procedures.