Heath Behncke

Financial advice disruptor Asendium has completed a capital raise and secured more than $1.1m of investment, primarily from the financial services industry.

Asendium is transforming the way financial advisers deliver advice, through a dynamic platform that creates all required advice documents at the same time, through one instance of data entry. It is designed to eliminate the manual part of advice generation, thereby creating more time for advisers to work with clients and build their business.

The capital raise closed on October 31, and was funded by a mix of institutional investors, several aligned and independent financial advisers, and private investors.

“Asendium is built as an enterprise solution and we are using the funds to grow both our technical capability, product development, and integrations,” Asendium CEO, Scott Miller, said. “As a result of the capital that was secured in recent months, we have been able to accelerate Asendium’s integrations with key complementary technologies that will help financial planners create advice more efficiently.

Holon Global Investments invested in the capital raise. The fund manager is focused on the future of investing and technology and believes that Asendium is where advice is headed in terms of efficiency, quality, and the centralisation of data, which until now, has largely been scattered throughout the suite of industry tools across various areas with no universal data capture.

“We invested in Asendium because Scott and his team have deep expertise in the challenges facing financial advisors and a passion to see their innovative solution globally scale,” Heath Behncke, managing director of Holon Global Investments, said. “They are doing for financial advisers what Xero is doing for accountants. This is the future, and we want to be part of that journey.”

“Financial planners have been calling for a solution that directly targets the end-to-end advice creation process. This is evident in their investment and involvement to build out Asendium’s reach and technology,” Miller said.

Both aligned and independent advisers also participated in the capital raise.

“Being an adviser for 15 years I have used many different methods. Asendium is compliant, efficient, and easy to use,” Cameron Forbes, from Forbes Fava Financial Planning, said. “I wanted to invest in this to be part of the solution for the financial planning industry. I saw this as a way to contribute for the next generation. The ability for Asendium to be configurable for each individual adviser and client is unique.

“The application of Asendium goes beyond financial planning; it is applicable to other industries such as accounting, mortgage broking, legal and has global application. If we can crack the nut here in Australia – which has the most difficult, convoluted compliance and regulation system in the world – we can see great appeal and penetration of this technology globally.” Miller said.

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Heath Behncke

Heath Behncke, a founder of the Australian consortium’s bid for Libra Association membership, has recently returned from the OECD Blockchain Conference in Paris and saw a significant and growing interest in Libra’s innovation, despite media reporting to the contrary.

While France and Germany publicly declared ‘banning’ Libra, behind the scenes, “Libra was on everyone’s lips, and a strong feeling that it would become a reality,” Behncke said. “Bertrand Perez, Managing Director & COO of the Libra Association, was swamped and needed to be escorted in and out of the building because of the sheer number of people who wanted to talk to him.”

It’s no surprise that governments and central banks feel threatened by Libra, particularly as it aims to make global money movement far more affordable, faster and secure – something governments and central banks haven’t been able to do. Behncke explained that “the Swiss regulators have acknowledged blockchain innovations and Libra is now working with them to get a license, making implementation closer to being a reality.”

“There are critics who cite Libra as a ‘systemic’ risk to the financial system,” Behncke said. “Even though Libra’s Reserve has attractive economics, if it got to a trillion dollars, this is still a drop in the ocean compared to global reserves; so no real impact. Additionally, Libra is a payment system, not a store of value for customers, so people won’t be looking at Libra with investment eyes such as Bank deposits or other investment instruments.”

Mr Behncke added that, “concerns about Libra destabilising countries or undermining national sovereignty is a bit of a stretch. In fact, Libra will be ‘backed’ by a basket of fiat currencies, not replace them, and the stability of those fiat currencies is key to Libra’s own stability and value. Each country still controls its own monetary policy so national sovereignty isn’t touched, let alone destabilised.”

Heath Behncke also said that, “what’s interesting, particularly for Australia, is that the attention on Libra has meant we’re asleep at the wheel with China, who are looking to release their own digital currency this year. China has more advanced digital and cultural infrastructure than Libra and can easily roll-out far sooner and with greater impact. Once the digital Yuan gets a foothold in the Asia-Pacific region, which is highly likely, cross-border trading using its digital currency will become the norm, not the exception.”

In meeting with representatives from Libra, Heath saw a clear recognition of the early role that the Australian consortium has taken in positioning itself with plans to establish a local chapter. “Its clear that Libra’s governance arrangements will ensure no one member (28 members now but looking to grow to 100) controls the eco-system, including Facebook, and they are keen to foster ‘grassroots’ approaches.”

“It’s no secret that the Australian consortium would like operate one of the 100 nodes for Libra,” said Heath Behncke, “but we’ve still got a long way to go before we make application.”

A good outcome for Australia

“Australia is vulnerable to global digitalisation of financial services even though we have a stable banking sector, a respected banking regulator and improving balance of accounts. It is easy to be complacent when Australia came out of the GFC relatively unscathed.

“Who knows if the next global shock will be a trade war or currency war or just a general tightening of demand for our exports. We do know that the scale that global digitalisation of payment systems is bringing its own set of issues for all countries and their fiat currencies.

“We need to see jobs in the new financial order not just risks. Those countries that can lead the digital revolution will make the rules and get the jobs that are still to emerge in an open source online world of transactions and payments”, said Mr Behncke.

A good global outcome

They believe that the Libra Association’s proposed innovation of a global digital currency to enable billions of people to access fast, low-cost and secure payment services may grow faster than many business leaders would expect to see happen.

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Australian business leaders, regulators, social impact organisations, researchers and politicians will quickly face a threshold question regarding Libra.

A founder of the recently launched enterprise to apply for membership to the Libra Association is excited by the strong local support that is ‘springing up’ about Libra’s innovation.

“We thought there would be some interest but were not expecting so many partners to sign up immediately. Their level of expertise of what Libra can bring to Australia is well informed; the knowledge base locally on blockchain technology is deep and practical.

“Through a consortium of partners, we’re seeking membership to the Libra Association in Switzerland and to operate the technology in Australia. This technology includes having Australia become one of the official Nodes for Libra,” said Luke Behncke, CEO, Libra Australia.

The instigators of the local consortium are Heath and Luke Behncke. These twin brothers are Australian fund managers. Their fund, the Holon Photon Fund, is focused on global innovation, particularly digital innovation – thus their close interest in Libra.

They believe that the Libra Association’s proposed innovation of a global digital currency to enable billions of people to access fast, low-cost and secure payment services may grow faster than many business leaders would expect to see change.

Business and Government face a threshold question

Australian business leaders, regulators, social impact organisations, researchers and politicians will quickly face a threshold question regarding Libra.

The threshold question won’t be about Facebook (as it is only one of the 28 members of Libra), but whether Australia can risk being left out of the conversation, and consequently, left out of the innovation.

Libra is questioning the current global payments structure and has let the digital currency genie out of the bottle. Local currencies may have serious competition in the future, with a ‘don’t participate at your peril’ message sewn right into the fabric of Libra.

Politicians, banks and business leaders know that existing global payment systems are slow/costly/problematic. The existing country-based systems present real barriers to business and individuals moving currency around the world.

The threshold question is simply now about whether Australia watches Libra from the sidelines or seeks a seat at the founders’ table to fully understand the opportunity and impacts.

Australia is vulnerable to global digitalisation of financial services
They suggest not to underestimate the pace of scale that global digitalisation of payment systems may bring. These sorts of digital technology models have been tried and proven over the last decade, such as Netflix, Google, Amazon and Xero, to name a few. They believe that the Australian financial services industry is particularly exposed to this kind of digital disruption.

“We need to be better prepared and work with our industry to secure opportunities for jobs, business and market growth as well as identify transitional impacts as questions about the future of money and digitalisation and traditional payment structures are in such open review by companies and governments”, said Mr Behncke.

By Luke Behncke, Chief Executive Officer

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