Ian Dunbar

Financial advisers have been given another boost in the race to digitalise their businesses with the recent tie-up between SuiteBox – a virtual meeting platform designed for financial risk compliance – and YTML, creator of Seido, an integration hub that connects fintech applications that results in a more efficient way to deliver advice.

The partnership between YTML and SuiteBox sees the Seido Integration Hub connect directly with SuiteBox’s virtual meeting software, allowing advisers and their clients to meet, discuss and close business by combining face-to-face video meetings, document sharing and digital signing – recorded, compliant and available for regulatory scrutiny.

The direct integration into the Seido platform –an integration hub designed by YTML to solve the connectivity challenges advice businesses face when delivering advice – means that those using the system can easily add SuiteBox to their workflow.

SuiteBox Chief Executive, Ian Dunbar, said: “Our partnership with YTML enables financial advice businesses addressing the digital transformation challenge to create additional value in their client relationships. Our solution provides a hassle-free virtual meeting space with specialist features designed for financial services businesses.”

YTML Director Piew Yap said, “We are delighted that SuiteBox has joined us in recognising the importance of connectivity in advice. Seido provides a platform where advisers can use many different technology solutions, without having to re-enter information in to each program – it’s an open API, and will be the future of technology in advice.”

One of the unique features of SuiteBox is it’s VideoSign Proof of Signature feature, which significantly enhances the robustness of signature verification by capturing on video the advice given and the customer’s acceptance and intent in the lead up to them signing documents.

The two companies have been able to complement their individual services with a neat integration that offers a very attractive cost to advisor businesses. SuiteBox’s integration provides additional value with a flexible, monthly license at an exclusive price for Seido users.

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Ian Dunbar

Sydney-based technology company, SuiteBox, is pleased to announce that it has been chosen to participate in the Australian Government’s San Francisco Landing Pad, alongside nine other cutting edge Australian companies.

SuiteBox’s Chief Executive Officer, Ian Dunbar, will take up residency at WeWork, located in the San Francisco financial district as part of immersion in the Landing Pad atmosphere. The neighbourhood is peppered with startups, technology investors and established companies, all of which combine to provide a rich environment of skills and talent for Australian companies to create expansion opportunities. WeWork’s alumnae include Airbnb, Dropbox, Reddit, General Electric, Microsoft, Red Bull, Honda, and General Motors.

SuiteBox was chosen because of its unique in-person virtual meeting business application that enables real-time digital signing within the meeting, automatic creation of an audit document that is appended to the meeting recording, video proof of the signer added to each signature, and a video recording file capturing all elements of the meeting.

With the ethical proof of professional advice under scrutiny globally, regulators increasingly require that any advice given to a client must be recorded and stored for evidence of purchase intent and understanding by the consumer.  SuiteBox enables an entire transaction to be completed in one meeting with multiple signatures collected in real time from the parties in the meeting regardless of where they are geographically located and records every interaction, spoken word, and non-verbal body cue during the entire meeting.

“We are honored to be recognised by Austrade and are excited to be able to benefit from the Landing Pad programme as the springboard to our US market expansion. The start-up expertise from the Landing Pad will expedite the global adoption plans of SuiteBox.  This is about enabling an Australian start-up to be successful in the global economy.  Success globally means that jobs and revenue are created back home in Australia”, said Dunbar.

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Ian Dunbar

Fast growing privately owned Dealer Group, Dover Financial Advisers, has partnered with video workspace software firm SuiteBox to deliver cutting edge video meeting, collaboration and digital signing technology to its network of advisers, the Companies announced yesterday.

SuiteBox is a digital workspace that uses technology to replicate a meeting room environment.  It allows advisers to meet with up to three people in a client group via video; to share screens; to share and work on documents; to give control to clients to do the same.  Unlike other video conferencing tools such as Skype, it allows participants to complete, fill in and sign required forms and paperwork.

Peter Thompson, Adviser Relations Manager at Dover said, “we embrace technology and the efficiencies which can help our advisers better engage and service their clients. SuiteBox’s innovative technology helps narrow this gap and we are excited to support advisers making decisions which provide these positive outcomes.”

SuiteBox’s CEO, Ian Dunbar said, “we are very excited to have partnered with Dover to deliver a new digital channel for Dover’s Advisers to engage with clients.  Dover is one of the fastest growing dealer groups in Australia, with a forward-thinking approach to utilising technology in the delivery of financial advice.

“Australia-wide, organisations are embracing technological innovation to boost business growth by eliminating inefficient processes. “In the financial services industry in particular, technology is having a huge impact, speeding up interactions with clients and enabling transactions to occur in real time, which can only benefit clients,” he said. “Something as simple as the digital signing of a document can bring forward a financial transaction by days or weeks. Software has enabled virtual meetings, which eliminate the need for in person meetings, which can be time consuming and costly for people to attend. Instead, with a digital meeting room, businesses can be more productive and move ahead with financial transactions at any point in time, anywhere in the world,” Dunbar said.

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Matt Cave

SuiteBox, the global provider of Digital Workspace solutions for professionals, is delighted to announce the appointment of Matt Cave to the newly created role of Chief Revenue Officer. Matt has more than 20 years of sales and marketing leadership experience across a range of industries. As CRO, Matt is charged with driving the continued growth of SuiteBox.

Ian Dunbar, CEO of SuiteBox said: “Matt brings to SuiteBox a rich pedigree in business leadership and sales performance. In prior roles as CEO of his own rapidly expanding start-up and more recently as GM of Sales for an ASX-listed company, Matt will add the impetus we need to take SuiteBox to the next phase of its growth.”

SuiteBox operates in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and the United Kingdom, and has recently announced partnerships with Aon, Centrepoint Alliance and Pathways in the Australian market.

Energised by the new role, Matt added “The opportunity SuiteBox has provided me is incredibly exciting as well as challenging. It is exactly the project I’m seeking. Prior to my arrival the team have invested incredible effort in developing a truly world-class digital workplace solution. I look forward to helping build on their great work.”

Dunbar added “We have ambitious global expansion plans, which include diversifying our sales efforts to including Accounting, Law, and Property as well as extending our existing foothold in Financial Services. We will actively seek partnerships in new markets in SE Asia, Europe and the USA.”

Over 800 companies globally use the SuiteBox digital workspace technology. The company is experiencing rapid adoption as businesses globally embrace video, collaboration and digital signing technology to create significant growth efficiencies.

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Ian Dunbar

Global digital workspace provider SuiteBox yesterday announced it has won the mobility solutions category in the fin5ive challenge, part of the BankTech Asia Awards program. SuiteBox’s digital meeting, collaboration and digital signature solution beat hundreds of applications to impress a judging panel for its innovativeness and relevance to the Asia market.

SuiteBox’s SE Asia representative, Ms Leng Leng Ng, will present SuiteBox to over 200 Senior Bankers at the BankTech Asia event on 5th and 6th of July in Kuala Lumpur.

Ian Dunbar, CEO of SuiteBox said: “We are delighted to win this award. This acknowledgement is testament to the quality of our product offering and the continuous programme of innovation we have developed since we launched 18 months ago.”

“We have grown substantially over the last year and recently launched into the Asia market setting up a representative office in Singapore. We look forward to rolling out the product further across the Asia-Pacific region in 2017 and beyond.” He added.

Over 600 companies globally use SuiteBox’s digital workspace technology. The company is experiencing rapid expansion as businesses globally embrace video, collaboration and digital signing technology to create significant growth efficiencies.

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Ian Dunbar

Global software provider of digital workspace technology SuiteBox has upgraded its software to allow for four-person meetings that, for the first time, enables the multi-party signing of documents in a secure cyber environment.

Ian Dunbar, CEO of SuiteBox, said: “This new functionality allows for a meeting host and up to three participants to meet together to virtually witness, sign and collaborate on documents in real time, in a safe and secure cyber environment. No other video conferencing software option offers this capability,” said Dunbar.

“In a business environment, digital workspace solutions must meet the demands of business. So we have upgraded SuiteBox to offer more flexibility in terms of the number of participants and secure digital signing capabilities,” he said.

“This is a world’s first functionality, that will enable all businesses to progress deals more quickly. It’s a busy world and it’s often impossible to conduct meetings in person. Our software enables up to four people to participate in the business transaction, which overcomes geographic and time barriers to help you and your clients get deals done and documents executed right away. Uniquely, SuiteBox enables a document to be signed by multiple parties within the digital workspace. No other technology globally facilitates this sort of capability.”

Over 600 companies globally use SuiteBox’s digital workspace. The company is experiencing a rapid expansion given the growing popularity of video conferencing in business and the engagement it offers with clients.

“Most surveys tell us that customers prefer meeting personally with their professional advisers to arrange their financial, legal or tax affairs. However, this can be costly and impossible if you and your client are located in different cities or towns. This is where the digital workspace can overcome time and geographic barriers and deliver significant business benefits and an enhanced client experience,” said Dunbar.

“For example, a professional adviser may leave a document in the SuiteBox digital workspace for invitees to review and sign at their leisure, and meet if they need to via video or in person. All interactions are recorded and stored, providing the highest level of compliance and authenticity of the transaction.”

SuiteBox is the only digital workspace technology solution in the world that allows businesses to share, amend and digitally sign documents with customers in real time and authenticate documents on-screen to complete transactions. Professionals can meet clients in their very own secure digital workspace anytime, anywhere and discuss documents together, and then store them back in a location of the client’s choice.

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David Whyte

A Final Word on Trowbridge LIF is upon us, and a retrospective gnashing and wailing is not particularly helpful. But it should serve as a warning for the future – as Santyana observed: “Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it”.

The publication of the Trowbridge Report in Australia contained proposals that were destructive, and anti-competitive.

Creating an extreme position on compensation structures may well have been a negotiating tactic, but the outcome of adopting the LIF measures, driven by the so-called ‘findings’ in the Trowbridge will have a negative impact on the personal risk protection industry in Australia.

This will, in turn, disadvantage the wider Australian community to the detriment of the public purse, enterprise, families, and individual Australian citizens.

This article is not written in support of high commission levels, nor does it seek to justify the various reward structures that prevail in Australia and New Zealand.

In the main, financial advisers in Australia and NZ serve the public well, and stakeholders in the NZ financial services industry have rejected the recommendations of the Trowbridge report.

In Australia, the prescriptive regime and adversarial nature of the regulatory bodies will merely drive dishonest practitioners to invent ever more ingenious ways of bilking the public.

And if you think the Australian regime has been effective in making markets more secure for Australian citizens, ask the victims of the recent Commonwealth Bank and Macquarie Bank scandals how they feel.

And don’t think Australia escaped the GFC unscathed. Capital + Merchant, for example, had their Australian operation in full swing under the Cymbis Finance banner, and stitched up Australian citizens just as effectively as did their NZ counterpart.

So much for a “rules-based” regulatory environment.

But ignoring the effectiveness of the Australian regulatory environment for now, and looking at the lead up to the Trowbridge Report, there was a discernable pattern of behavior that should be of deep concern to all Australian and NZ financial services industry stakeholders.

ASIC produced “Report 407 – Review of the financial advice industry’s implementation of the FOFA reforms” in September 2014. The research for the report was conducted by ASIC between September 2013 and July 2014. From the arbitrarily filtered research sample of 749, a mere 80 licensees were approached, and only 60 participated – out of a total of 5,100.

These licensees embrace an individual adviser population of 9,918.

To measure accuracy and validity, researchers use confidence interval calculations. These are really only valid when a truly random sample of the relevant population is accessible.

However, if we give ASIC’s methodology the benefit of the doubt for illustration purposes, to be confident that 95% of the licensees would produce the same results (with a 5% margin of error), the sample size would need to be 357.

The sample selected produces a margin of error of 12.5% – the generally accepted margin is between 4% and 8%. This fundamental flaw in the research leaves the statistical integrity of the research open to question.

There are therefore aspects of the representative nature of the research that are at best suspect, at worst dubious and/or statistically not significant, accurate, valid, or reliable. ASIC published “Report 413 – Review of retail life insurance advice” in October 2014.

The research concluded that 37% of the 202 files reviewed from 7 licensees, representing a total adviser sample of 79 individuals, contained advice that failed to meet the relevant legal standard. In this research, the concepts of accuracy, reliability, and statistical significance based on random sampling were completely abandoned.

Taking 202 files from 79 advisers (out of a total population of 18,000 according to the Ripoll Report), representing 7 licensees (out of a total of 5,100 on the ASIC database), is, quite simply, of no meaningful significance.

Put simply, there was no statistical evidence to suggest that the Australian financial advisory industry indulged in widespread ‘churn’ or malpractice. Subsequently, a Life Insurance and Advice Working Group (LIWAG) created by the Association of Financial Advisers (AFA) and the Financial Services Council (FSC) was instructed to develop an industry response.

As it turned out, not all submissions to the LIAWG were made public – whither transparency? And there were parties that gleefully alit upon ASIC’s flawed research.

The Trowbridge Report from the LIWAG was nothing more than a response to the blatant political pressure being exerted to “do something”.

An indicative proclamation at the time by Assistant Treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, that threatened Federal Government intervention was evidence of this pressure.

Mr. Frydenberg’s reference to “poor levels of compliance highlighted by ASIC” stemmed from the flawed research previously mentioned.

So the “something” that Trowbridge took aim at was the commission levels available to financial advisers recommending life risk products to clients.

Despite the presence of risk product options on all Superannuation and Industry platforms, Australians remain steadfastly underinsured, as reported by KPMG in 2014 and by Swiss Re in 2007.

Adopting LIF based on the measures recommended by Trowbridge will render many business models uneconomic, cause a move away from non-aligned advice, and bolster the market position of vertically integrated organisations that both manufacture and distribute risk products.

Consumers will suffer a reduction in choice, access, and availability of any semblance of impartial advice as these vertical organisations dominate the market by pushing their in-house proprietary products – “in the best interests of the client”.

So there are obvious consequences for consumers in diluting the viability of some independent adviser business models. But there are wider issues at play here which contain warnings for the future of the industry.

LIF/Trowbridge-style measures are anti-competitive as they penalize cost-efficient organisations that can contain expenses by attracting market share through the use of leading-edge technology and product development.

If a product provider’s business model has a heavy new business dependency (and which new life company doesn’t?) why should they be prevented from allocating expense within the premium structure to stimulate the required new business flow?

If pricing and product quality become uncompetitive, the market will react accordingly – as it did in the 1990’s in NZ when the market share previously enjoyed by the mutual life offices was successfully challenged in NZ by Sovereign’s arrival, product innovation, and subsequent success.

This success was fuelled by (then) radical product design, innovative technology, and an unshakable belief that great service would bring great results.

The company gave advisers and their clients a choice, something the mutual life offices singularly avoided doing at the time.

And ultimately, the mutual companies paid the price – consumer sovereignty prevailed.

So in addition to exacerbating the underinsurance problem in Australia and NZ, the idea of mandated commission levels works against consumer choice.

Adviser organisations and companies that draw their support from advisers need to be more vigilant, vocal, and vociferous when faced with such ill-considered measures.

Repeating the mistakes of history is a costly and sometimes fatal exercise – the financial adviser industry on both sides of the Tasman needs to be wary of ignoring these lessons.

By David Whyte, Chairman

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Ian Dunbar

Global software provider of digital workspace technology solutions SuiteBox predicts over 1,000 companies will be using its mobile meeting rooms by March 2017, opening up the provision of financial services globally, including in Africa, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand which rely heavily on video conferencing to connect with the rest of the world.

Ian Dunbar, CEO of SuiteBox, the mobile office solution for professionals, said: “Based on current growth rates, we expect the number of companies using our technology to increase by more than 500% in 2017, with these companies spread across the globe.

Our business is split as follows: 40% in Australia, 20% in New Zealand, 20% in South Africa, and 20% in the rest of world, including in the US and UK. SuiteBox has already doubled its headcount in 2016 and will likely nearly double again in 2017 as we spread the word of the benefits of virtual engagement technology across the globe,” said Dunbar.

The use of virtual meetings is growing rapidly worldwide. Global fintech conference company Finovate recently named virtual meetings as a ‘top trend in wealth technology’ for 2017 and predicted virtual meetings would become a key strategy for wealth managers to deliver advice to clients in the most convenient, most efficient and engaging way possible.

SuiteBox has also announced enhancements to its software, including the capacity to have a four-person virtual meeting, integrated forms with YTML highlighter, and in January it will expand its digital signing capacity to include the ability to embed video and photo evidence into the signing, “a world first which will make us a market leader in digital workspace tools,” said Dunbar.

SuiteBox is developing the concept of the ‘digital bank branch’ as this becomes another trend in the provision of financial services in 2017.

SuiteBox recently launched in South Africa in partnership with Moonstone Information Refinery, which bought a 10% equity shareholding in SuiteBox Solutions.

SuiteBox is the only digital workspace technology solution in the world that allows businesses to share, amend and digitally sign documents with customers in real time and authenticate documents on-screen to complete transactions, whilst being in a virtual meeting or in person. Professionals can meet clients in their very own secure virtual room anytime, anywhere and discuss documents as if they were in the same room together, then safely store them in the cloud with Oracle and Amazon Web Services.

“As the world becomes more connected, virtual meeting rooms can add significant value to most service-based businesses because they allow client interactions anywhere, irrespective of geographic location. Business people can undertake all personal consultation in a secure online forum, with face-to-face contact helping to build customer intimacy more effectively than phone or digital-based engagements such as emails,” Dunbar said.

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Ian Dunbar

Australian businesses invested a record $3.75 billion in computer software in the third quarter of 2016, and new highs are expected in 2017, reflecting the rising importance of technology to Australian economy to reap productivity gains and business growth, according to Ian Dunbar, CEO of SuiteBox, a global software provider of digital workspace technology solutions.

The seasonally adjusted private computer software spend rose 3.2% in the September quarter of 2016, a 13.1% jump from a year earlier, according to gross domestic product statistics released today by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). The report reveals spending on computer software has hit record levels for several quarters as the role of technology becomes more vital to business.

In separate data released by the ABS this week, national productivity, as measured by multifactor productivity (MFP), grew 0.9% in 2015-16 across all industries. This year marked the fifth consecutive year of un-interrupted MFP growth. In the financial and insurance services sector, MFP grew 1.9% in 2015-16, outpacing national growth.
Ian Dunbar, CEO of SuiteBox, said: “Australia-wide, organisations are embracing technological innovation to boost business growth by eliminating inefficient processes.

“In the financial services industry in particular, technology is having a huge impact. For example, the advent of robo-advisers and online investment platforms is speeding up interactions with clients and enabling transactions to occur in real time, which can only benefit investors,” he said.

“Something as simple as the electronic signing of a document can bring forward a financial transaction by days or weeks. Software has enabled virtual meetings, which eliminate the need for in-person meetings, which can be time consuming and costly for people to attend. Instead, with a digital meeting room, businesses can be more productive and move ahead with financial transactions at any point in time, anywhere in the world,” Dunbar said.

“In addition, the advancement of cloud-based software and the rising popularity of software-as-a-service (SaaS), and the benefits it offers, such as lower initial costs and easier upgrades, is prompting more businesses to buy software as it becomes more accessible.”

SuiteBox is the only digital workspace technology solution in the world that allows businesses to share, amend and digitally sign documents with customers in real time and authenticate documents on-screen to complete transactions, whilst being in a video meeting on in person. The signature process is recorded and video’s archived for future reference and compliance requirements. Meetings can also be recorded.

SuiteBox has just completed a $1.5 million capital raising and is expanding its sales team as demand for its virtual meeting product grows.

“Professional service providers such as financial advisers, lawyers, mortgage brokers and accountants can dramatically boost their productivity by enabling immediate and personal interactions with clients rather than by communicating through impersonal exchanges such as email and rushed telephone calls,” Dunbar said.

“As time goes on and as technology becomes more important, we can expect to see more businesses adopt digital technologies and software aimed at achieving greater efficiencies and delivering greater transparency to their clients in the advice and investment process. As a result, we expect to see the national quarterly software spend top $4 billion in 2017,” he said.

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Ian Dunbar

Financial services businesses that focus on boosting consumer engagement by embracing digital innovation such as mobile meeting rooms will represent the next generation of customer service, according to Ian Dunbar, CEO of fintech SuiteBox, with several financial advisory firms recently signing up to use its virtual meeting room tool in Australia and New Zealand.

Ian Dunbar, CEO of SuiteBox said: “Business that evolve with technology and embrace technological innovations ahead of their competitors will be the ones to more effectively engage existing clients and attract new ones in the coming year,” Dunbar said.

“By offering something as simple as a virtual meeting room, professional service providers can dramatically boost client engagement, far more effectively than through a sterile email conversation or impersonal phone call.

“Financial advisers or mortgage brokers, for example, who adopt virtual meeting rooms and make more personal contact with clients represent the next generation advice or service model and they will have an easier time engaging people, including millennials, who demand the latest technological innovations,” he said.

SuiteBox has just completed a $1.5 million capital raising, bringing on a South African financial services Moonstone Information Refinery firm as a 10% shareholder. The company has raised about $4.5 million since it was founded in 2013 and is targeting $1 million annualised revenue in the next six months. SuiteBox hopes to achieve profitability in 2017, which will set it apart from many other fintech start-ups that run at significant losses.

Stephen Hunt, Head of Training, Education & Licensing with financial planning group Bridges, said SuiteBox’s virtual meeting room technology allows more flexible engagement with clients. “Bridges is one of Australia’s most geographically diverse licensees with a large representation in regional areas, so SuiteBox will enable us to deliver our professional advice solutions with greater reach and efficiency than can be achieved via traditional methods.

“In looking for ways to enhance the way our advisers engage with clients, efficiency and a digital platform were important considerations. The SuiteBox meeting platform offered those components and more,” Hunt said. “You can even conduct annual reviews with your client when its suits them by simply sending a link via email. This link activates a video meeting at a pre-arranged time, enabling an immediate conversation.”

Brent McGregor, Head of Service & Sales with New Zealand Financial Services Group (NZFSG), said SuiteBox’s technology has enabled his business to boost customer satisfaction and save costs.

“We have improved not only client satisfaction, but the productivity of our own business. Virtual meeting rooms eliminate the need for the client to travel hours to attend a meeting, which is time consuming and costly. SuiteBox’s tools enable our business to move ahead more quickly with transactions and clients appreciate this efficiency and personal contact,” said McGregor.

Dunbar said advances in internet speeds are allowing smoother virtual meetings. SuiteBox’s superior technology avoids common problems with other video software such as meetings dropping out at crucial moments. “We are living much of our lives over the internet – but businesses can still do so much more to speed up their operations while using the internet to download and share information immediately,” he said.

“Whether you are a financial adviser or a mortgage broker, leveraging technology in your business will enable you to achieve greater levels of engagement and satisfaction, deepening the client relationship,” said Dunbar.

According to recently released data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the total volume of data downloaded on the Internet in the three months ended 30 June 2016 was 2.1 million Terabytes (or 2.1 Exabytes), a 22.3 per cent increase in data downloads when compared with the three months ended 31 December 2015.

As virtual meeting room technology takes off in Australia and NZ, and next generation advice businesses such as NZFSG and Bridges grow in number, the volume of data being downloaded would explode further, Dunbar said.

“SuiteBox’s digital workspace will help you to avoid the painful process of sending emails back and forth with documents to be signed then scanned. This can take days to complete – while financial markets are moving. But our e-signature solution enables you to meet in real time online and complete transactions, wherever you are in the world,” said Dunbar.

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