Accounting firm Pascoe Partners collaborates with OpenInvest to launch online investing solution
Award-winning mid-tier accounting and advisory firm Pascoe Partners has today announced the launch of Pascoe Partners Invest, its new online investing solution, in order to reach and serve a broader number of clients.
Pascoe Partners Invest will offer access to four diversified investment portfolios, covering a range of risk/return profiles and also including an Ethical portfolio. All four portfolios require a minimum of only $5,000 to get started, and are managed by the experienced financial planning and investment team at Pascoe Partners.
Director Andras Hernadi said that the firm was launching Pascoe Partners Invest to meet the needs of the broader client base of the accounting firm who wanted professional portfolio assistance, whilst no longer needing or being ready for the full personal advice service. The adult children of the firm’s HNW client base had also expressed the need for a lower-cost entry point to the firm’s wealth management expertise.
“As a well-established firm with offices in Perth and the wheatbelt region of WA, we have helped a very large number of clients establish their SMSF as a means to achieve long-term wealth creation and the best possible retirement. Not every SMSF client wants or needs our traditional personal advice experience, and yet they all appreciate the value of professional management of their SMSF’s assets. Now with Pascoe Partners Invest, we can offer a choice of solutions to all of the firm’s clients, and not have to turn away any prospective clients,” Hernadi said.
Hernadi added that with $3.5 trillion of wealth passing through the generations over the next two decades,[1] progressive wealth management and advice firms were taking action now to reach and help the children of their clients.
“Our experience is that the adult children of our clients are very engaged with their finances and are actively looking for professional investing assistance in these early stages of their wealth-building journeys. Unfortunately, the initial upfront cost of personal advice makes this difficult for most of them. Pascoe Partners Invest allows this cohort to open their investing account in five minutes, directly from our website,” Hernadi added.
Pascoe Partners Invest will also provide a regular “feed” of content on financial wellbeing topics, further assisting younger users to adopt sensible long-term financial habits.
More than Money
Fellow Pascoe Partners Director Con Gotsis said that the strategic goal of far-sighted wealth management firms was to assist their clients to successfully pass on their wealth to the next generation, confident those recipients will similarly nurture and grow wealth for the generation that comes after them.
“It’s about more than just money, it’s about knowledge, responsibility and a sense of obligation. We see our new online investing solution as helping to achieve that ambition by being able to include the broadest possible audience within the umbrella of the firm’s professional expertise,” Gotsis said.
Partnership with OpenInvest
The Pascoe Partners Invest solution is being delivered in collaboration with Melbourne-based investment platform, OpenInvest. The company’s head of distribution, Ravi Verma, said that OpenInvest was proud to be partnering with Pascoe Partners, given their long history of helping Western Australian families and businesses.
“The rules around personal advice and the loss of advisers across the industry mean that firms wanting to reach and help the broadest possible audience can’t do so the traditional way, but need to leverage innovative technology. We’re proud to be playing our role in helping firms like Pascoe Partners to provide their professional expertise to more Australians,” Verma said.
Verma drew attention to a recent Australian Financial Review article highlighting that there are nearly 2m Australians under the age of 45 with an average portfolio balance outside of Super of $700,000, who are looking for professional help.[2]
“There’s a huge and very profitable market out there for firms willing to be creative and use technology to reach them,” he added.
[1] Productivity Commission: Wealth Transfers and their Economic Effects, 2021
[2] https://www.afr.com/policy/tax-and-super/meet-the-under-45s-dubbed-the-emerging-affluent-20220421-p5af2l
