1 August 2008

Leading investment manager Tilney Private Wealth Management (TPWM), a division of Deutsche Bank, has gone live with a new release of Master Account, an Internet-based system developed by MBA Systems to support TPWM’s IFA partnership business.

TPWM’s Master Account IFA partnership business accounts for around £500 milion of its total £8.1 billion of funds under management. “Our IFA partners are very important to us,” explained John Phelan, operations director for TPWM. “Master Account has been developed by MBA to enable us to partner IFAs in providing the best possible investment solution for their own clients.”

Developed on Microsoft .NET, Master Account is a multi-tiered application that links front-end Web servers under IIS on Windows Server platforms to a SQL Server database. The project was successfully managed using Microsoft Project, version control is achieved via SourceSafe, and all system documentation uses Microsoft Word enhanced by Visio where necessary. The system is designed to help TPWM’s IFA partners create an optimum investment profile for their clients, comprising all assets in a single picture, which is branded with the IFA’s own corporate identity.

In addition to the funds under management with TPWM, Master Account enables IFAs to capture all other investments that their clients hold, from property to fine wines and from art to racehorses as well as financial products outside of TPWM’s management such as savings accounts and pensions. This enables IFAs to have a complete picture of their clients’ total wealth and asset distribution, which equips them to manage accounts more effectively. Each client is able to share the same view of their account with their IFA when seeking advice over the telephone. Furthermore, the report is branded with the IFA’s full corporate identity.

Investing with TPWM provides IFAs with a range of seven asset classes. When viewing a portfolio online with Master Account, the current value of the assets under management with TPWM is shown as well as other details, including a full transaction history.

The response of TPWM’s IFA partners has been positive: “They particularly like the way it is presented and the richness of the client reporting. Having a single picture of each client’s complete asset base has been tremendously well received,” said Phelan.