Chris Mather

Self-licensing specialist My Dealer Services (MDS) has secured access to Colonial First State’s (CFS) award winning FirstTech technical services team to provide its network of more than 400 financial advisers operating under 110 AFSLs with high quality technical support across a broad range of advice areas.

The educational partnership is the fourth new or enhanced service offering MDS has provided its rapidly growing member network this year as it embarks on a strategic growth initiative.

The Sydney-based company supported more than 20% of all Australian financial advisers who achieved self-licensing in 2024 and is working at a cracking pace to not only significantly grow its adviser network in 2025 but also its network support offerings.

MDS Director and Founder Alexander Euvrard said the educational partnership with CFS would provide MDS adviser members with the most up to date online technical reference and strategy guides covering a range of areas including superannuation, tax, self-managed super funds, aged care, social security and estate planning.

Members of the MDS community would also benefit from access to CFS FirstTech podcasts, webinars, monthly bulletins and fact sheets that could be shared with clients and used in client newsletters, he added.

CFS Business Executive Director of New Business, Chris Mather, welcomed the initiative and said “CFS is delighted to partner with MDS to help advisers deliver great outcomes for their clients.”

MDS Head of Strategy, Ashley Mahadeea said that apart from primarily guiding and supporting advisers through the self-licensing process, MDS was firmly focused on adding value by providing a wider range of additional services.

“Our educational partnership with CFS is a great example of how we do this. We go out on behalf of time-poor smaller adviser groups and find the best and most innovative providers in their field to support them as needed at competitive rates.

“Over the coming months, we will be launching additional services and reaching out to more advisers to share our core belief that self-licensing is nothing more than removing a layer to allow advisers and practices to run their business their way, with the client front and centre of everything they do,” Mr Mahadeea said.

This year MDS has also partnered with Claras, an Australian Fintech to provide advisers with a powerful AI-driven software tool to turn recorded conversations with clients into accurate, and comprehensive file notes that ensure data security. It has also launched a new paraplanning and administration service for its members wanting SOA creation support, in collaboration with Broker Support Global (BSG) which has large paraplanner and admin teams overseas as well as key staff in Australia.

The company has also rolled out a new MDS Licensee Compliance Portal which allows members to access a secure dashboard that keeps them abreast of all key compliance dates and requirements and provides access to a live newsfeed with the latest industry governance and regulatory updates.

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Chris Mather

BT has launched the Robotic Integrated Technology Administration (RITA) feature on BT Panorama, which enables advisers and their support staff to track the status of transactions via the platform’s user interface.

Previously BT Panorama users had to call BT to check on the status of transactions, and forms submitted offline, with over 60,000 advice practice calls in 2021 checking progress updates relating to services like onboarding clients, withdrawals and amendments.

RITA gives advice practices a business view of their transactions and forms at their fingertips through the platform’s user interface, saving substantial follow-up time, which could equate to up to 50 hours per year for an advice practice with 300 clients.^[1]

RITA is a fast automated service request tracker and can track over 50 different forms and 398 transaction types.

After conducting a pilot of RITA with 50 advice practices, on 22 August, BT made the feature available to the more than 6,000 advisers and 10,000 support staff using BT Panorama.

“RITA is a critical element of BT’s support to advice practices, to help them become more efficient and streamline their operating model,” said Chris Mather, Head of Platforms Distribution, BT. “Most of the advisers and support staff on our platform prefer to access information online, to save time, and we’re continuously looking at how we can support them.”

Introducing RITA is part of BT’s commitment to supporting quality financial advice to thrive and follows other time-saving developments designed to ease the administrative burden on advisers and their teams. Such as the introduction of digital consent, the usage of which saw increased take-up in the June 2022 quarter, up 10 times compared to June 2021. BT’s chatbot “Blue”, which earlier this year was made available on the BT Panorama mobile app, is another time-saving enhancement which enables advisers to find answers about using BT Panorama, with some efficient and friendly guidance from Blue.

As part of its drive to be advisers’ platform partner of choice, a key focus for BT is creating efficiencies for advice practices’ support teams. BT’s ongoing Best Practice series in partnership with Elixir Consulting has been tailored for support staff, and so far has attracted over 600 advice practice personnel, from around 450 advice practices.

“Practice professionals and office administrators are critical to improving workflows, managing client expectations and the growth of advice practices – and so we are enhancing BT Panorama in ways that align with how they prefer to work,” Mr Mather said.

“Whether your practice is working with mass affluent individuals or high net worth family offices, BT Panorama enables the delivery of quality advice. Driving efficiencies in back-office processes is a key part of BT’s strategy to support advice practices of all sizes,” Mr Mather concluded.

Future updates to RITA will allow full automation for completing forms, while Blue’s capabilities will also be expanded.

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[1] Based on BT data. In 2021, BT fielded approximately 60,000 phone calls on status checks from advisers and support staff following up on receipt of forms, progress updates and estimated timeframes for completion when submitting manual forms, totalling 10,000 hours each year; and estimated to equate to approximately 50 hours for an advice practice with 300 clients.

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David Stephen

Invest Blue has partnered with BT, in conjunction with Ironbark and Russell Investment Management, to develop a managed account solution for the advice firm’s 4000-strong client base.

The new suite of five managed portfolios, administered on BT Panorama, has been developed exclusively for Invest Blue. The separately managed accounts are issued by Ironbark as the responsible entity, and with Russell Investment Management as investment manager.

Chris Mather, Head of Distribution, BT, said: “With the Invest Blue investment committee, Russell Investments and Ironbark all working in sync on a contemporary platform, BT Panorama, we’ve been able to deliver a tailored solution for Invest Blue’s advisers and clients.”

Invest Blue’s objective was to find a wealth management solution that provided excellent options and experience at a more competitive cost for their clients. Invest Blue CEO David Stephen has endorsed BT’s ongoing implementation of the managed account solution, highlighting how BT worked with the Invest Blue team to manage operational changes in order to embed the managed account solution across its advice practices.

Mr Mather added: “BT’s focus on continually improving the digital features on the platform helps advice businesses realise the full extent of the benefits of managed accounts, in terms of efficiency and ease of use for their advisers and clients. Simultaneously, at BT we have invested heavily in our team’s capability to support change and implementation as part of our commitment to advisers, and we’re pleased that advisers are responding positively to the support that we offer.”

Funds under administration in BT’s managed portfolios increased by 52% in the year to 31 December 2020 ($3.4b to $5.2b); and managed portfolios comprise 15% of Panorama’s total FUA (excluding Tailored Portfolios and Adviser Portfolios). Within a 12-month period BT added 41 new managed portfolios across 10 arrangements with either new investment managers or through new additions to existing managers, bringing the total number of managed portfolios to over 160.

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