IAN TAYLOR

W hen the Association of Investment Trust Companies chose to team up with Trans act, a consolidated portfolio service for IFAs, it could hardly have hoped for a more enthusiastic leader to manage the system.

Ian Taylor, 36, who is the general manager of Inte grated Financial Arrangements, says the online marketing venture with the AITC is an opportunity for companies to offer IFAs a better service as well as promoting the importance of independent advice.

Taylor says: “The AITC does an excellent job of promoting investment trusts but it has problems with implementing the solution to how people actually acquire investment trusts. That is where we come along. We can help the AITC to bring together the information.

“It is important to get advice about what you are buying. Advice is paramount. There is no point in having lots of assets if you do not know why you have them.”

The marketing venture offers an effective solution for both companies, enthuses Taylor. He says there was no need for the AITC to set up its own system as it made more sense for it to come on board with an operation already up and running.

“We were the organisation the AITC was actually talking to when it was deciding how to set up its system. But it was absurd for us to help it to set up a system which would eff ectively compete against it,” explains Taylor.

He claims the new venture will lift a huge administration burden from IFAs, who will now have “more time to be IFAs” rather than be swam ped by paperwork. IFAs also stand to benefit from rene wal payments on investment trusts in addition to initial commission.

Taylor says IntegraFin is a project that does not rely on IFAs being up to date with new technology. In fact, 80 per cent of its business is still done via the fax and telephone.

Taylor explains that alth ough all its services are available online, the internet is not an end in itself, merely ano ther means of communication, so more established methods are still being used by IntegraFin.

After 13 years spent working in financial services, Tay lor has clocked up con siderable experience in setting up new systems. He initially wor ked with the Lloyds Life/Royal Heritage team which established Royal Life Fund Management.

He says: “I was involved in the legal side of the operation, as well as helping with strategic planning and marketing. With Black Monday and the Financial Services Act coming in at the time I began working in the industry, it was something of a baptism of fire.”

By 1992, Taylor had moved to the company now known as AIB Govett, where he was marketing director until 1999.

B ut Taylor had long harboured dreams of being a writer. After graduating from Cambridge University with a degree in English literature in 1985, he started his career as an antiquarian bookseller in Essex.

Taylor, who has a huge book collection, enjoyed his time in book selling but left to get married and move to Lin colnshire, where he still lives with his wife.

He says he soon realised writing does not pay a great deal of money, so took a job in the personnel department at Royal Heritage.

From this, he began to take an active role in setting up the Royal Life fund management company. Taylor says his love of writing has never gone away but he is enjoying his time in finance.

“I love my job and am plea sed I get intellectual satisfaction from my work. It is great to genuinely believe in the company and what we are doing. It is an ethical organisation and everyone involved makes a fair return, which is a driving force.”

He was the first UK emp loyee of the firm, which is owned by ObjectMastery, an Australian software firm. There are now 15 staff in the UK, which Taylor says is a far cry from its beginning, when just two staff were based over a restaurant.

Taylor divides his time between working in London during the week and travelling home to his family in Lincol nshire at weekends.

He has a seven-year-old son and a three-year-old daughter – who he hopes has been born late enough not to attract too much attention on account of being called Elizabeth.

He is a keen follower of Essex county cricket club and also spends his free time visiting art galleries and socialising at the pub.

Taylor says it is an exciting time in finance and he is content to stay as general manager of IntegraFin. “I intend to stay with this job for a while. It is the future and it is where I want to be,” he says.