Hastings-based financial advisory services business, Finzo, has hooked up with Iress to offer a plug-and-play front-end system that synchs in real-time with an investment platform.
Nick Stewart, Finzo chief, said the deal to connect the Iress financial planning software, Xplan, directly with an underlying platform was a major upgrade on current practice.
Stewart said NZ advisers typically had to manually re-enter data from front-end planning tools into investment platforms, creating inefficiencies and compliance risks that would become more critical under the imminent Financial Services Legislation Amendment Act (FSLAA) regime.
“Previously, advisers have had no connection between their investment platform and CRM [client relationship management system],” he said. “That has meant advisers have had to duplicate work and face compliance risks.”
Under the deal, the direct Xplan data feed would only be available to adviser clients who use both the Finzo CRM and its FNZ-built platform.
According to Stewart, the new service would be open to advisers who operate under the intended Finzo Financial Advice Provider (FAP) licence or as a bolt-on “business in a box” solution for external parties.
All advisers will have to operate under a FAP licence once FSLAA goes live next June, albeit with a two-year transition until full licensing conditions apply.
Andrew Logan, Iress NZ head of wealth, said the collaboration with Finzo would provide surety for advisers that their client data was accurate and up to date.
The new service “provides advisers with a single source of truth for data, while streamlining the end-to-end client engagement cycle from onboarding, risk profiling, investment modelling and portfolio construction, to portfolio management, reporting and monitoring,” Logan said in a release.
Finzo evolved out of the Boutique Advisers Alliance, rebranding in May this year in anticipation of increased demand for outsourced advisory business and compliance services in the FSLAA era. BAA moved from Aegis to a bespoke FNZ platform in 2017.
Stewart is also head of the family-owned advisory firm, Stewart Financial Group (SFG). SFG helped set up and advises on the Booster ‘Asset Class’ range of KiwiSaver funds, which feed into strategies managed by factor-investing giant Dimensional Fund Advisors.
The ASX-listed Iress operates in multiple financial data and technology sectors including front-end advisory tools where its Xplan software dominates the Australian, NZ and UK markets.