PARTNER INSIGHT: Logic Wealth Planning's Stephen Trenholm and Greenstone Financial Planning's Catherine Greeves met in London recently to discuss the topic 'Adviser approaches to client engagement - is digital king?'
Talking to Professional Adviser editor Julian Marr in the above video, one of five in this series, Trenholm and Greeves discuss what their experience has been in the run up to the new data protection regulations.
"It's very easy to take a negative view of what GDPR is about but when you look at it, a lot of the [recommendations] are good business practice anyway," says Greening.
She adds that because Greenstone Financial Planning was founded only two years ago they don't have the legacy issues that other firms have had to contend with. "So for us we see GDPR as an opportunity to make sure our house is in order and to get some of the processes and procedures we've been keep talking about up to scratch."
Legacy clients
Meanwhile, Logic Wealth Planning's client base is more established and the issue of legacy processes is more acute. Trenholm says: "Broadly speaking the arrival of GDPR has been a good thing but with any new regulation, there are challenges. One of the largest issues we've had is we do have a quite a few legacy clients - so we've had to find a way of re-engaging with them and making sure they are still happy for us to contact them other than for fulfilling a contract."
Indeed in relation to GDPR, planners and IFAs need to concentrate on their security obligations, says Nicola Howell, Senior Compliance & Privacy Attorney for Dun & Bradstreet.
"It is very easy to think of organisational measures referring only to security and IT security, however, most data breaches occur around staff and employees, either through maliciously stealing data or accidentally leaving it on trains. So it is important that organisational measures are put in place and staff are trained."
