Skipton Building Society calls on industry to adopt Origo’s Unipass Letter of Authority

Skipton Building Society’s financial advice arm has joined calls urging the industry to adopt a Unipass Letter of Authority, as a means to speed up the market processes and create better outcomes for customers.

Skipton Building Society’s financial advice arm has joined calls urging the industry to adopt a Unipass Letter of Authority, as a means to speed up the market processes and create better outcomes for customers.

A Letter of Authority (LoA) is a legal document, signed by the client, which allows their adviser to correspond with providers on their behalf. Currently, this a slow, fragmented, mainly paper-based system, which is frustrating for advisers and can see clients waiting months for providers to accept the authorisation.

Moving to a digital LoA creates efficiencies and consistency throughout the process and helps providers conform to Consumer Duty, avoiding the potential of creating ‘foreseeable harm’, and delivering a significantly better service for the end client.

Skipton – the UK’s fourth largest building society with more than 1.1 million members – is trusted with more than £3.8billion of customers’ money and has been using the Unipass Letter of Authority service for subscribed providers since early 2023.

Helen McGinty, Head of Financial Advice Distribution at Skipton Building Society, said: “The customer is the most important part of what we do. We’re here to give them the best possible outcome, and we think the Unipass Letter of Authority is a clear and obvious enhancement to the customer experience.

“Having a means of communicating rapidly and digitally with providers means we can work with greater speed and less friction. Frankly, it makes our processes smoother, and it means we can keep our customers bang up to date on progress. That’s a win-win in my book.

“I know that integrating a new system or process is not always easy or straightforward, but in asking providers to adopt the Unipass Letter of Authority, we’re asking them to join us in putting the best interests of the customer first.”

Anthony Rafferty, CEO Origo, says: “Origo has been delivering solutions for the industry’s pain points for over 30 years. The Letter of Authority process is one that had fallen behind in terms of where the industry is at with technology. Developing Unipass Letter of Authority was a clear win for advisers and their clients as well as providers, making their process more cost effective and consumer orientated.

“In a fully outcomes-focussed regulatory environment, providers are quickly realising the benefits Unipass Letter of Authority delivers for them, advice firms and the end client.”