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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IRESS has continued to develop XPLAN into a world class financial planning application.

XPLAN has achieved the highest benchmark score for any financial planning application in the seven years of the Investment Trends Planning Software Report.

XPLAN was top rated, followed by Coin and AdviserNETgain.

The top rated Hybrid planning/platform integrated planning application was AdviserNETgain/Asgard.

FOFA development has been completed with a new development focus on engagement.

FOFA development has been completed with a range of enhancements to client service package management which give planners the ability to individually manage service package elements and control the level of reporting detail in client Fee Disclosure Statements.

The completion of FOFA development marks the end of several years of software development focussed on practice operations.

“Vendors have moved on from FOFA to refresh application interfaces, mobile functionality development and client engagement,” said Investment Trends Analyst Ian Webster. “Vendors are trying to improve planning efficiency by connecting planners and clients to practice workflow wherever they are.”

Vendors have moved to ensure their online applications are supported on tablets with IRESS and recently Coin releasing tablet apps with planner and client access.

IFAs, institutions and superannuation funds are using technology to deliver a range of scaled advice services.

The introduction of scaled advice has prompted the development of several new online planning applications and services as well as planning practices starting to use technology like video, social media and self-directed advice to develop new client relationships.

“Scaled advice may be an enduring legacy of the FOFA reforms,” said Ian Webster. “After several years focused on developing planning operations functionality for comprehensive planning, vendors are turning their attention to a broader range of advice delivery services.”

Provisio was surveyed as the best superannuation scaled advice application.

Projection based engagement has been a feature of superannuation fund websites for many years. In recent years financial calculators have been replaced by projection based self-directed advice recommendation services and call centre based scaled advice applications for superannuation advice provision.

“Provisio has been part of the development of superannuation advice technology for many years and has been joined by several other applications offering different approaches to scaled superannuation advice delivery,” said Ian Webster. “Rubik’s Proviso was surveyed as the best superannuation scaled application followed by Decimal and XPLAN Engage.”

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2013 Planner Technology Report released

Key findings of the Investment Trends 2013 Planner Technology Report:

• XPLAN continues to lead the planning software market with the largest number of adviser relationships
• Midwinter has the highest satisfaction amongst its users

IRESS leads planning software market in number of adviser relationships

IRESS’ XPLAN increased its lead in the software space following the migration of VisiPlan and MLC’s AdviserCentral users to it, and now holds 51% of primary planner relationships among software users in Australia, according to a new report released last week from leading wealth researcher Investment Trends.

In its tenth year, the May 2013 Planner Technology Report is an in-depth study of Australian financial planners and their technology needs. The study is based on a survey of 1,141 financial planners concluded in May 2013.

“The planning software market has completely morphed over the past decade,” said Investment Trends Senior Analyst Recep Peker. “Where VisiPlan used to dominate, and Microsoft Excel was used to plug the gaps, XPLAN is now the main planning tool for half of Australian planners.”

The industry has gone from the top four providers holding 56% of primary relationships in 2004, to a concentrated market where the top four now hold 87% of primary relationships.

Most used planning software by primary adviser relationships                        

Industry satisfaction levels hit a five year high

Planners’ satisfaction with their most-used software reached a five year high, although increasing only slightly from 2012.

“Versus last year, Australia’s planning software providers increased adviser satisfaction the most with constructing portfolios, capturing fact-find information, helping select investments and producing client review reports,” said Peker. “This reflects the extensive development work undertaken in these areas over the last 18 months.”

“Planners are also happier with their planning software across every element measured compared to a decade ago, though the area with the smallest growth in satisfaction, ease of use, is also the main area that planners still say they want software providers to improve.”

“Among the two large players, XPLAN had higher satisfaction than COIN, and the gap between them increased from last year,” said Peker. “Given the acquisition of COIN by Rubik, it will be interesting to see what happens to COIN’s satisfaction ratings following their new and upcoming developments including the refresh of the COIN user experience.”

Midwinter had the largest increase in users’ overall satisfaction from 2012, and the highest average overall satisfaction rating. Relative to the industry, it scored notably better for ease of use, producing simple plans and scenario modelling.

AdviserNETgain had the highest satisfaction ratings for value for money, producing comprehensive financial plans and producing client review reports.

Average time to produce a full SoA continues to decrease

“Even with planners’ clients’ needs becoming more complex, and a greater compliance burden placed on planners’ shoulders, software providers have continued to shave precious minutes from the time it takes to produce the average SoA,” said Peker. “Planners now estimate it to take over an hour less to produce a SoA than it did six years ago.”

“The greatest time savings are from editing and personalising the document, and calculations, modelling and projections.”

About Investment Trends

Investment Trends is the leading specialist market research organisation in the Australian retail wealth management industry, and also operates in the US, UK, Germany, France and Singapore. We provide new insights and decision support information to over 200 leading financial services businesses.  We combine analytical rigour and strategic thinking with the most advanced research and statistical techniques to help our clients gain competitive advantage.

Investment Trends’ clients include all of the top five Australian banks, the top ten investment platform providers, the top five online brokers, as well as industry regulators, leading margin lenders, dealer groups, financial planning software providers and risk product providers.

About the report

The results are drawn from the Investment Trends May 2013 Planner Technology Report, released to Investment Trends’ clients last week. This report was based on a survey of 1,141 financial planners in April and May 2013.

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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 Financial Planning Association (FPA) will host a number of sporting champions to share their wisdom and experiences during special lunchtime speaking engagements with the financial planning profession. In an FPA first, these events have also been designed for members to bring along their valued clients.

The first Professional Leadership Series event takes place in Melbourne on 1 August 2012, with AFL legend Michael Malthouse as the guest speaker.

Mr Malthouse has had a remarkable 40-year career coaching at the elite level in the VFL and AFL. His track record includes taking one premiership as a player with Richmond, two premierships as coach of the West Coast Eagles and one as coach of Collingwood.

“The sporting and business worlds have a great deal in common. The challenges of building a new culture and putting in place a strategy to turn around a team get the best performance you can exist in many leadership roles. I’m looking forward not only to sharing some insights from my own experience but also exchanging ideas with FPA members and their clients,” said Mr Malthouse.

Mr Malthouse will present at an additional FPA event in Perth on the following day which is already sold out.

Australian elite athletes fresh from competing at the London 2012 Olympic Games will then feature at a number of other events to take place in Sydney, Brisbane and Adelaide in late August and September:

Sydney – 29 August

Swimmer James Magnusson, current 100 metre freestyle world champion.

Brisbane – 3 September

Swimmer Jessicah Schipper, awarded Order of Australia in 2005, Bronze and Gold medal winner at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, former world record holder 200 metre women’s butterfly.

Adelaide – 5 September

Cyclist Anna Meares, holder of ten world titles, Olympic medal winner in Athens 2004 and Beijing 2008 Olympics.

“The Professional Leadership Series is a great new initiative to bring to our members and their clients. This is part of our ongoing commitment to engage with our members and provide them with more choice and opportunity.  It delivers on our promise to add value in new and different ways, including ensuring our events are of a high educational quality and attract CPD points,” said FPA CEO Mark Rantall.

Mr Rantall went on to wish the three Olympian speakers the very best of luck in their upcoming London 2012 events.

Sponsored by IRESS, the event supports the Future2 Foundation. All FPA members attending will receive one CPD point.

 23 July 2012

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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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