Advisers concerned over client tech gap: Hub24

The Modern Face of Advice white paper, released yesterday by Hub24, said that whilst the decreasing cost of technology in the advice space is encouraging widespread business automation and making it easier for advice businesses to manage cash flow and budgeting, there remains a gap in such tech solutions for advisers to use with their clients to promote personal wealth management.

Speaking in the white paper, Chris Bolger, managing director of Acute Wealth Management said while emerging technologies are catering to the budget and cash flow needs of advisers, "there’s been little available in the way of personal financial management tools for clients."

“We’re looking at My Prosperity, which provides individual financial management,” he said. “So, if you’ve got bank accounts with four different banks – mortgages, insurances, super – that feed is securely allocated and consolidated into one platform that is white labelled to our business. It will be a centralised spot where the original documents are for estate planning, the latest insurance policies are accessible and allows us to focus on the pointy end of things for clients.”

From a practice management perspective, the technology used in advice practices continues to mature, and the costs – including platform fees and management expense ratios — are declining to enhance bottom line results, the white paper stated.

“There are cash flow tools, modelling tools, estate planning tools that weren’t available, and these really enrich the adviser-to-client experience," Paul Trosti, managing partner of Godfrey Pembroke, Financial Advice Specialists said in the white paper.

“With the cash flow tools we can see the ins and outs for their personal household that help us measure their progress towards their plan, that’s being updated daily,” Mr Trosti said. “When we’re meeting with them, we’re not asking them how the last quarter went in terms of income and expenses; we know because we have it on our system.”