Keystone Components

• Awareness
• Integration
• Credibility

Awareness: SPF supports a marketing strategy that integrates investment products across multiple delivery channels within your institution. SPF believes that, since your customers generally have as many or more assets in investment products as they have in insured products, the investment services program must be a significant focus of the overall marketing strategy of the financial institution. Our goal is to help you heighten the awareness of your investment services offering among both customers and staff such that the offering receives equal “shelf space” among all core products. Our Program Development and Marketing departments can help you with strategies and tactics.

Integration: We recommend that you integrate your investment program fully into core products offered by your institution, starting with demonstrated involvement and support from the highest levels of management. This “top down” approach to supporting the investment program makes it clear to other staff members that investment services plays a critical role in the future growth of your institution. Once this role is fully understood, staff members make the commitment to help investment services grow. In turn, you will see investment revenues grow as well. SPF has focused on creating tools that enable financial institutions to easily integrate the investment program into its core offering. For example, we have implemented an online information management and database system, dataVISION, which allows financial institution managers to access information and reports about all aspects of customers’ investment holdings. In addition, SPF has developed systems that allow linkage between traditional and non-traditional products, providing a consolidated view of assets for the customer from the financial institution’s website, and in some cases through home banking utilizing "single sign-on" technology.

Credibility: To be successful, your investment representatives and programs must represent credible options in the minds of your customers. Through our training process, we ensure investment reps are up-to-date in their knowledge, and licensed appropriately for the products they offer. We also help them communicate clearly to ensure that clients understand the options available and become even more comfortable that their investment team is truly working on their behalf. SPF provides a comprehensive online compliance manual for all representatives licensed with us. In addition, we publish online compliance memos several times a year to update and remind representatives of their compliance obligations and regulatory changes. All compliance and regulatory support is conducted by experienced professionals who conduct regular surveillance on transactions, representatives’ activities and commission activities as well.