AstuteWheel shines in 2020 Netwealth AdviceTech Report
Online fact finds and risk profiling tools, and scaled advice tools, are where advice practices believe they will receive the greatest benefits in financial planning technologies over the next 24 months, according to the 2020 Netwealth AdviceTech Report recently released by Netwealth.
“AstuteWheel shone in both these categories, according to the 2020 Netwealth AdviceTech Suppliers Guide, which accompanies the Report, and measures the usage of technology by AdviceTech Stars,” says Hans Egger, Managing Director of AstuteWheel. “This means we are well-positioned for growth.”
AdviceTech Stars (Stars) are described as industry role models which have a higher average FUA and revenue, and are also successful adopters of technology.
In the online fact-find and risk profiling tools category, AstuteWheel was preferred by almost a quarter of the Stars (23.5%), second only to Xplan.
“Our usage has increased by 4% in this category since last year,” Mr Egger says, “and we expect this to increase again over the next 12 months, as we’ve recently improved the online questionnaire to offer clients a better way to provide information around their goals.”
Despite only launching its enhanced scope and scale of advice wizard in early 2019, AstuteWheel was also the third most popular software provider in the scaled advice tools category. The most popular solution was ‘built in-house’.
“Our solution provides a strong RegTech feature as it offers a structured process for the adviser to capture all the ASIC requirements when providing advice that is limited through scoping and scaling,” Mr Egger says. “We believe many of the practices currently using an in-house solution might therefore find our tool better once they see it.”
One aspect of Stars behaviour that the report highlights is that they are less likely to engage in ad-hoc spending on software solutions. Thinking carefully about their investment, Stars use a defined technology roadmap and annual budget which helps them to achieve higher results than the rest of the industry in areas of improved efficiency, compliance management, improved advice quality, better client engagement and higher client satisfaction scores.
Some of the reasons they are able to enjoy these benefits are because they are careful to not only bring on the resources they need to make sure technology is implemented effectively but they also ensure that their various tech solutions integrate effectively thereby eliminating inefficiencies from multiple handling of data.
“Integration of data is an area that AstuteWheel has focussed on over the last 12 months,” Mr Egger says. “Within our own software system, we have created efficiencies by flowing relevant information to auto populate downstream tools. This also assists with compliance as relevant links are established and captured between client needs and the advice eventually provided.”
Integration between AstuteWheel and financial planning CRMs and other software providers is achieved through the ROAR Software integration hub.
