The survey reveals that UNIPASS is of great benefit to advisers working online - a resounding 86% agreed that financial websites are easier to use with UNIPASS, and 78% said that using UNIPASS increases their daily productivity.
A massive 4,933 users took part in the survey this year - compared to 2,332 in 2004 and 833 in 2003 - reflecting the growing UNIPASS user base and providing great insight into user experiences. UNIPASS is now used by more than 17,000 advisers in the UK.
Free to advisers, it provides users with an easy and secure way to do business online, without the need for multiple user ids and passwords.
Driving the uptake and usage of online services is a major focus for the financial services industry and feedback received by Origo from advisers demonstrates this - stating that they aim to source as much information online as possible in the next two years.
UNIPASS user Graham Wells, of AWD Chase de Vere, says: "UNIPASS allows me to get in to all the websites I use by just clicking a button. It makes it easier to use online services, and has improved my efficiency - I'd say it saves me about an hour a week."
Not only is UNIPASS making life easier for advisers and making them more productive, it is also encouraging more use of online services and making a significant impact in terms of reducing costs:
-79% said that UNIPASS reduces user administration overheads of using UserIDs and passwords
-61% said that they use online services more often now they have UNIPASS
- 64% said that UNIPASS saves them up to 1 hour per week - 19% said it saves them up to 3 hours per week and 3% said up to 5 hours per week.
Using just the responses to the survey, the respondents have estimated that they save a whopping £355,000 per week, which equates to an average saving or each UNIPASS user of around £3,750 per year.
If all 17,000 advisers currently using UNIPASS made similar savings, the total saving could mount up to over £1.2 million per week.
Paul Pettitt, managing director of Origo, commented: "The industry's goal should be to get to the stage where e-business is part of everyday working life and is in fact second nature to advisers. I am encouraged to see such a big and positive response to this latest UNIPASS user survey, and delighted
to learn that we are helping advisers to save so much money.
"We know advisers are busier than ever and that their time is valuable and should not be wasted. Obviously, our adviser users won't make the total potential saving of £64 million pounds indicated by our analysis, but even if it's only half of that, it shows that the potential is enormous. The results clearly demonstrate that using a single means of authentication makes doing business online easier and that UNIPASS has established itself
as the digital certificate of choice allowing advisers to save time, effort and money," he added.
UNIPASS has received buy-in from all of the UK's major life companies and portals and is now accepted by many organisations, including: 1st, AXA, Bankhall Online, Clerical Medical, CoFunds, Friends Provident, Intelliflo, Legal & General, Norwich Union, Prudential, Quay Software, Scottish Equitable, Scottish Life, Scottish Widows, Skandia, Standard Life, The
Exchange, The Hartford and Zurich Intermediary Group.
