Segment Profit was down 3% on the previous corresponding period (pcp), reflecting acquired costs, currency movements  and the short-term impact of annual leave delays following the onset of COVID-19. Excluding these factors, Segment Profit growth was up +2%.

Reported NPAT was down 14% on 1H19 due to the impact of operating losses in acquired businesses and increase in annual leave expense. Excluding the impact of these items, NPAT was +4% on pcp.

Iress chief executive, Andrew Walsh, said: “Iress’ primary focus during COVID-19 has been to ensure the health and wellbeing of our people and service continuity to clients. Iress and its 2,000 people adapted quickly and seamlessly during the rapid move to home working. Our technology and systems have meant all services have continued and been accessible to clients working remotely.

“Our response to COVID-19 has been based on considering the needs of all our stakeholders over the short, medium and long term.

“Our software and services have proven to be reliable and resilient during COVID-19. Demand has remained strong with increased interest in our digital offering.

“In Australia, we are continuing to support advice businesses changing licensees or setting up new business, with more than 400 advice businesses choosing Xplan over the past year as the industry changes.

“We also see continuing momentum in our superannuation strategies, with a second super fund selecting Iress to automate its operations, and with delivery to the first super funds expected in the first half of 2021.

“In the United Kingdom and Europe, revenue growth was higher than the prior corresponding period due to the positive contribution of our recent acquisition of QuantHouse as well as stable core revenue reflecting client delivery success. This was offset by the temporary restriction of mortgage products as a result of COVID-19, however we continue to see a strong client pipeline and re-commenced delivery momentum which will drive future financial results.”

Key points:

• Group revenue: $270.7 million, +12% on 1H19 (+11% on a constant currency basis).
• Group Segment Profit: $71.9 million, -3% on 1H19 (-3% on a constant currency basis). +2% excluding acquisitions and a short-term COVID-19 related increase in leave costs. Underlying3 margins flat.
• Reported NPAT: $26.3 million, -14% on 1H19. +4% excluding acquisitions, currency movements and short-term COVID-19 related increase in leave costs.
• Interim dividend: 16 cents per share, 35% franked.
• Strong underlying fundamentals: Cash conversion of 134%; recurring revenue ~90%; net debt balance $48.7 million representing a conservative leverage ratio of 0.3x Segment Profit.

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The Chief Commercial Officer will be responsible for Iress’ business growth objectives, including increasing growth at scale. The Chief Commercial Officer will report to the CEO and be a member of Iress’ leadership team.

Iress chief executive, Andrew Walsh, said: “I am delighted that Michael is joining us in this role. The new role reflects our focus on scale, consistency and delivery, particularly where clients have increasingly similar needs. We also continue to focus on improving the client experience and a focussed strategic approach to this is important to Iress and our clients.

“Michael is an experienced financial services leader with extensive international experience including in Asia Pacific, the United Kingdom and the US. This includes leading the equities division at Australia’s largest bank, Commonwealth Bank, as managing director for Asia Pacific for MF Global, and currently as the chief executive of research firm Investment Trends, which provides research and insights to financial services businesses in Australia, Asia, Europe, the US and the UK. Michael will bring a strong focus to sales capability and client experience supported by his international and industry experience.”

The roles and responsibilities of managing directors, who will report to the Chief Commercial Officer, are unchanged.

Michael will start in the role on 19 October.

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Adam Fenech

Leading Papua New Guinea (PNG) financial institution, Kina Securities Ltd (KSL.ASX, KSL.POMSoX), has confirmed its fund administration division has expanded its implementation of IRESS’ Acurity Online, a new member and employer online facility, for more than 700,000 members.

The Acurity Online member portal and mobile app provides Papua New Guinean superannuation members with access to their fund information via any device. The member portal enables super fund members to update details online, access their balance and transaction history, view their statements, and conduct a range of other functions from their phone, tablet or computer.

Kina has also driven efficiency for employers using the Acurity Online employer module, enabling contributions to be lodged online for the first time in Papua New Guinea. This delivers significantly reduced administration times and positively impacts data matching and super engagement rates. The result is that contributions now get into members’ accounts much faster, in some cases instantly.

A long-time user of IRESS’ Acurity administration platform, Kina has funds under administration of K11 billion (A$4.32 billion) and has built its reputation on delivering industry-leading online member services and a highly differentiated superannuation administration environment for existing funds.

Adam Fenech, General Manager of Kina’s wealth management business, said the successful implementation of Acurity Online is part of its continued low-cost, high-tech fund administration capabilities.

“Just as the Australian superannuation industry transformed the relationship between fund members and employers with the SuperStream model, our implementation of Acurity Online is expected to raise the benchmark for our members in PNG and the wider Pacific market

“Acurity Online enables Kina to deliver vastly improved services for members by revolutionising the delivery of a broad range of digital member services. This sees paper-based forms removed from transactions and the majority of member transactions completed within one business day. Automated data matching ensures that member details in employer payroll systems reliably match the data in the superannuation system in PNG for the first time. This is key to the delivery of a better member and employer experience.”

Jeff Hall, Managing Director – Superannuation IRESS said: “The Kina and IRESS teams have worked to transform the superannuation administration environment in PNG. This latest Acurity implementation is a great example of how fund administrators can leverage the solution to deliver value-added services and improve member and employer engagement. By driving down transactional costs and enabling fund administrators to grow their business, Acurity delivers a true competitive advantage to clients.”

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Reporting directly to Chief Executive Officer, Andrew Walsh, Mr Rady will be responsible for leading IRESS’ Financial Markets business globally.

The Financial Markets business is a core division within IRESS providing market data and trading software and services to institutional and retail participants, representing professional and private end users. IRESS operates in Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Canada, South Africa and the United Kingdom.

Announcing the appointment today, Mr Walsh said the new role would be focused on growing IRESS’ financial markets business globally.

“Matthew is an outstanding executive with impressive international and local experience. The breadth and depth of this experience, including in financial services product innovation and technology-enabled, customer-focused roles, makes him ideally suited to this position and will bring an invaluable perspective to our existing business delivery and global growth.”

“The new role is a strategic response to our global growth plans and the opportunities being presented by this.”

Mr Rady joins IRESS from Macquarie Group where he spent 18 years as Executive Director of the Banking and Financial Services Group. Mr Rady was responsible for the development and growth of a range of businesses, with roles including accountability for product delivery, business strategy, acquisition and integrations, and management of international operations. Most recently, Mr Rady was head of Macquarie’s North American Banking and Financial Services Group, based in Toronto.

Mr Rady said that he was delighted to be joining the IRESS team.

“The company has gone through significant growth internationally over the past 12 months and I am excited about the opportunity to support existing clients as well as executing IRESS’ overall growth strategy in key markets.”

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Amongst these advice businesses are the vast majority of Australian institutional wealth businesses, along with many high profile boutiques, independent AFSLs and a large number of independent financial advisers.

Tizzy Vigilante, IRESS Executive General Manager of Wealth Management, says clients looked to IRESS as a scaled strategic partner for an effective, efficient and timely way to fulfill their new obligations.
“We are delighted to have risen to meet this challenge with many clients going live with XPLAN-­‐CommPay over the past weeks, ahead of the FoFA effective date of 1 July.”

The FDS solution has been one of the most sought after features of IRESS’ FoFA deliveries over the past 12 to 18 months, Ms Vigilante says. “Wealth businesses like the fact that the FDS can be tailored to suit their specific business requirements while maintaining effective oversight of their obligations.

“XPLAN-­‐CommPay is fully integrated within the XPLAN platform, enabling the adviser to combine client revenue data with service delivery and other customer relationship data, to facilitate the very efficient generation of fee disclosure statements,” she says. Ms Vigilante said that the IRESS team has been focused on delivering the best solution available while meeting delivery commitments across many concurrent client projects.

“We are continually investing in research and development, but the IRESS team pulled out all stops to ensure our clients were prepared for what is the most significant change to the regulatory environment advice businesses have seen,” she says. “We anticipate that the integrated XPLAN-­‐CommPay solution now available to all these users will mean we have made the FDS demands far more efficient and manageable.”

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Andrew Walsh, Managing Director of IRESS, said that XPLANtouch takes an important step in meeting adviser demands.

“Support for tablets is a key strategic initiative of IRESS,” he said. “Our clients want the convenience of mobile devices and we are keen to facilitate this.”

The XPLANtouch app allows advisers real-time access to client data and portfolios and allows them to present solutions to clients in visually interesting and meaningful ways.

“The app allows advisers to present a client’s data in a visual mind map,” Mr Walsh said.

“They can also complete the risk profiling questionnaire; produce results and discuss outcomes with clients – all while sitting with the client in the client meeting.”

While XPLANtouch is available on all tablets including the iPad, Android, and Windows 8 tablets such as the Microsoft Surface, under the hood it is a mobile web solution.

“XPLANtouch is an extension of the XPLAN advice platform, so all activity on the tablet is consistent with the advice processes defined and managed in XPLAN,” Mr Walsh said.

“This makes data access and use consistent and auditable.”

XPLANtouch and all its functions can be easily and seamlessly configured to match the corporate branding of financial advice businesses, large and small. 

“XPLANtouch can also be packaged as an adviser branded app in app stores to create a fully branded experience for advisers and their clients. It is within the reach of any dealer group using XPLAN to easily offer their own app,” Mr Walsh said.

IRESS has an ongoing investment and program of enhancements to XPLANtouch and will continue to work closely with clients on new ideas and opportunities.

XPLANtouch for advisers is available with release 2.7 of XPLAN.

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Airlie is the newly formed boutique investment management firm headed by former head of equities at Perpetual, John Sevior and former Treasury Group Managing Director, David Cooper.

Sam Marshall, Manager of Wholesale Portfolio Products at IRESS said, “IRESS has long standing relationships with key members of Airlie and is pleased to welcome the new manager onboard.

“We worked closely with Airlie throughout the implementation to deliver an integrated order management and settlement solution combined with rich portfolio management features. IPS’ tax analysis capabilities were also important to support increasing client requests to consider tax as part of the investment process.”

Airlie’s Managing Director David Cooper said, “Given our past relationship with IRESS, it was a simple decision. IRESS is a leader in investment technology and we know from experience they deliver the service and support we need for our business.”

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The 2011 version of the Investment Trends Planning Software Report is an in-depth analysis of fully featured planning applications most frequently used by Australian financial advisers. In Investment Trend’s December 2011 benchmarking tests, XPLAN achieved the highest overall functionality rating.

“IRESS has produced an impressive advice platform that is supporting their strategy to take Australian developed advice technology to international markets,” said Mark Johnston, Principal of Investment Trends.

“This is the fifth year in a row that XPLAN has ranked first for overall planning functionality,” added Johnston.

The report found that leading providers were the most active in adding new features to their products. Notably it commented that IRESS’ XPLAN ranked first with the much anticipated release of XPLAN 2 representing an important technology capability to support enhanced functionality in 2012.

IRESS continues to innovate across most aspects of functionality and released an important ‘Advice Container’ approach to codify Best Interest compliance in direct response to regulatory and compliance efficiency.

Andrew Walsh, IRESS’ Managing Director, commented, “IRESS continues to invest in our core XPLAN platform and bring new and innovative features to market, and it is pleasing to have this recognised again in this research by Investment Trends. Our core product and solution strength in meeting client requirements has not only seen growth in Australia but also made strategic inroads internationally, most recently in the United Kingdom where we believe our offer is significantly differentiated to local competition.”

“Our position as a wealth technology provider in numerous leading wealth markets is increasingly unique and strategic to our client base. Trends in consumerism and advice reform are resonating internationally, and the opportunity to address these common aspects with scale and broad experience presents numerous opportunities to IRESS and our clients,” added Walsh.

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Aviva’s Head of Retail, Andrew Peterson, said IRESS’ SMA technology provides a leading-edge and completely configurable administration system which allows Aviva to distribute its products independently of the traditional unit trust and platform environment.

“IRESS has helped us mark the dawn of a new era in SMAs by providing the technology that opens up access to the wholesale market for retail investors, via their professional advisers,” Mr Peterson said. “That means we deliver improved investor access to wholesale fee and brokerage rates and institutional placements.”

IRESS managing director, Andrew Walsh, said the brief for IRESS was to leverage the long-standing relationship with Aviva’s institutional portfolio management process to allow Aviva to offer a retail SMA that helps advisers deliver more efficient and more cost-effective advice to their clients.

“The IRESS Portfolio System leads the way in fusing institutional portfolio management with today’s retail demands as evidenced in this delivery to Aviva,” Mr Walsh said.

The IRESS Portfolio System (IPS) allows Aviva to deliver investment management in a SMA format offering beneficial ownership, transparency and portability, while remaining institutionally robust. It also provides out-of-the-box data feed distribution to all relevant advice technologies such as XPLAN, VisiPlan and Coin.

“In the interests of their clients, advisers are, sensibly, demanding rich data, something that is often overlooked by many SMA offerings,” Mr Walsh said. “As a leading independent technology provider to the financial services industry, we are committed to meeting the demands of the market and making technology work harder and faster for all advice participants so that they can deliver quality advice to clients.”

Direct SMA is only available to investors via authorised financial advisers.

Further information available at www.avivainvestors.com.au/directsma

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