In Practice

Listening into a webinar this week, there was an extensive discussion about the fact that very few, if any, financial advisers in the industry are pricing their clients appropriately. The theme of the discussion may well be right; however, the fact that it was delivered by a number of ‘experts’ who were unlikely to have…

Building a successful financial advice business is a hard slog these days, especially considering the regulatory requirements, rising costs, increased administration, educational standards, and the licensing and compliance obligations. That’s even before servicing the needs of your clients and the costs that come with it. Every advisory firm is grappling with the dilemma of unlocking…

High-net-worth (HNW) investors are the holy grail for any competent financial adviser. These are typically educated, experienced professionals and business owners who are seeking to establish long-term relationships and trust the adviser as an expert. Naturally, attracting these clients to your firm consistently is highly competitive and extremely difficult. As is typically the case, despite…

“If something is free, you are the product” This quote attributed to sculptor Richard Serra in 1973 was well ahead of its time, but offers a unique insight into the evolution of financial markets in the 2020’s. Just last week we witnessed the initial public offering of Robinhood Markets, a platform made popular for ‘zero…

The ageing population has many implications for financial advisers – more than the growing numbers either transitioning to or already in retirement. There is also the matter of dementia. The law allows an adviser to assume a person’s decision-making ability, but the law, like financial services, is complex. With either discipline, a wrong action can…

An Australian start-up, founded by Bryan Rollins, former general manager at Atlassian, WorkForClimate is focused on empowering individual professionals to create change within the corporate sector. Its mission is to speed-up the corporate transition away from fossil fuels by guiding businesses and employees to commit to climate goals across four categories: Energy – Help your…

Super funds have battled with providing financial advice for decades but have not yet found a solution that can make it affordable and efficient for millions of low-balance members. Digital advice – including ‘robo’ – which, in theory, solves the affordability problem, has also been a decades-long dream for Australian wealth management, a revolution in…

According to wealth management platform Netwealth (ASX: NWL), “Two in five advice firms will look to integrate their systems and databases in the next 24 months.” Assuming it’s correct, the wealth platform space will either undergo major consolidation or external system integration of some sort, that connects different sub-systems to one larger system that functions…

Rob Prugue, well-known investment manager and a former regional chief executive of Lazard Asset Management, has called on the financial services industry to appreciate the need for extra awareness of people’s mental state during the current lockdowns in Sydney and Melbourne. Prugue, the founder and director of People Reaching Out to People (PROP), a mental…

Global asset manager Natixis Investment Managers recently released their latest Global Investor Survey. Undertaken with the support of CoreData Research, the ‘pulse check’ of global markets surveyed some 8,550 individual investors from around the world, 400 of which were located in Australia. Titled ‘The next normal’ the report asks the important question of whether investors…

It’s been a slow week for wealth appointments, though one can imagine that Sydney’s lockdown – and the uncertainty around when it will end (this journalist’s prediction: by Christmas) – could have something to do with what is usually a steady stream of announcements drying to a trickle. That’s not to say there’s nothing to…

BetaShares and Investment Trends released their latest ETF Report, a quantitative study of the financial advice industry based on the responses of around 800 advisers. Whilst representing only a small portion of the industry, the results of the survey were enlightening. According to the survey, as many as 75% of the advisers that responded are…