Iress to launch ‘SuperSmart’ advice tool with HostPlus and IFS to address advice gap
Iress today announced that HostPlus and Industry Fund Services (IFS) will deploy its new ‘SuperSmart’ education-led digital advice tool, which aims to enhance superannuation member outcomes by combining digital advice with personalised financial education based on member demographics and preference data.
Iress is a leading provider of digital advice software for superannuation funds, generating over 21,500 interactive advice journeys per month with overwhelmingly positive feedback from members.
The new ‘SuperSmart’ tool combines Iress’ digital advice capability with member education, both of which are able to be personalised through registry data. It offers super funds a suite of self-guided, intuitive and affordable financial planning tools for members with simple advice needs, while providing highly efficient, effective member engagement and education through multi-format content.
Iress’ CEO of Superannuation, Paul Giles, said, “Over 12 million Australians have unmet advice needs today, and this gap represents a significant opportunity for super funds to leverage technology and data to deliver their members engaging, highly accessible personalised digital advice journeys, while providing options to speak to a human adviser.
“Iress is delighted to support Hostplus and IFS with mass-personalised, education-led digital advice solutions that enable their members to achieve better financial outcomes both today and in retirement. ‘SuperSmart’ is the natural extension of our extensive experience in advice delivery, providing super funds with an integrated digital advice and member education experience.”
HostPlus Group Executive – Member Experience, Paul Watson said, “Hostplus sees advice as a critical service offering for our members to enable them to retire with confidence. We’re passionate about ensuring that when our members are ready for advice, they’re aware that we can provide it to them on their terms – whether that be digital, in person or over the phone. We also recognise that our advice solution needs to be scalable to reach the level of membership that we have, and partners like Iress and IFS not only give us the ability to boost our current advice offering but, vitally, continually collaborate in optimising the experience over the long term.”
IFS Executive Manager of Advice Solutions, Adrian Gervasoni, said: “IFS is very focused on driving innovation and efficiency in how industry super funds are able to deliver great advice at scale. By partnering with industry leaders such as Iress and Hostplus, we feel we have the capabilities, risk appetite, conviction and clarity of objectives to seed a market-leading solution. Importantly this solution must meet the member’s needs, and not be just a widget building project.”
