Ben Nash

XY Adviser, an exclusive online community for the financial advice industry, has been named as a finalist in the category of ‘Excellence in Innovation’ for the 2021 Sydney City Business Awards.

The Sydney City Business Awards, held in partnership with the City of Sydney and Business NSW, recognises growth, entrepreneurship and celebrates business success across all industries in the Sydney central business district and surrounding inner-city suburbs.

The Excellence in Innovation Award recognises “a business that has made significant contributions to their industry and/or community, or implemented innovative solutions for new and existing business needs through the introduction or improvement of an idea, method, technology, process or application”.

Founder Clayton Daniel says “Financial advice is simply too important to be done poorly, and we’ve worked extremely hard to provide an environment for the best advisers to share and learn from one another. To be a finalist for this prestigious award is something our whole team is really proud of.”

XY Adviser’s nomination for this award was based on the launch of their professional network for the financial advice industry in January 2020. This exclusive platform allows members to ask honest questions and receive reliable peer answers in a safe and supportive environment. This has seen their professional network becoming the catalyst for advisers to start their own businesses, build their professional network and grow through industry-wide collaboration and idea-sharing.

Peter Tribolet (Foundation Financial Australia), says about the value of being part of XY’s community “The value XY Adviser offers is unparalleled, not just in Australia but globally. Where else can you ask a question and receive replies ranging from some of the most experienced Advisers in the world to the freshest, keenest new entrants with innovative solutions?”

Initially a ‘passion project’, XY Adviser was officially launched as a commercial entity in 2019 by Clayton Daniel, Adrian Patty (Advice Revolution), Ben Nash (Pivot Wealth), Ray Jaramis (Employment Hero), Emily Blanch and Andrew Rocks (Virtual Business Partners). 1 in 6 financial planners in Australia is now part of their private professional network, with members in almost 20 countries. Their financial adviser-oriented ‘XY Podcast’ is the most popular Financial Services podcast in Australia, consistently ranked in the top 15 most popular Business News podcasts in Australia.

In 2020, the success of this innovation allowed XY Adviser to raise capital from 200 advisers and since expand into South Africa and South-East Asia. They have also recently launched two new industry marketplaces; one for recruitment and the other for the buying and selling of financial advice businesses. Shortly they anticipate taking on an additional round of investment to further improve the user experience of their platform.

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Transitioning from Robo to digital advice.

The tone of conversations between institutional investors and wealth managers in the United States has changed in recent past, considerably.

There is an undeniable seismic shift away from what the industry expected the robo adviser to be.

The influx of Funds Under Advice (FUA) that was expected by the VC Seed investors from Silicon Valley just hasn’t happened. And when you’ve got a value proposition based on low costs, no volume equals no capacity for business growth, not to mention a few tricky conversations with seed investors waiting for their return on capital.

Back to the drawing board it is then.

The various FinTech providers have gone into the trenches, looked in the mirror and have (as of late 2015) raised their heads back in the marketplace, albeit with a different hat on.

Rather than the traditional B2C model which we have all become very familiar with, the Wealfront and Betterment’s of the world (Stockspot here at home) – there is a shift in positioning away from retail simply because of how much it costs to create awareness of a retail brand.

The new hat is that of a B2B white labelled offering, and there is a renewed excitement for developments 2016 will bring.

During a recent #IPinUSA15 study tour in Boston and New York, I was presented with the Pershing backed Marstone platform. Marstone is an example of a white labelled robo investment manager. What this means is that advisers can use this servce to provide a low touch scaled offering for their younger clients.

With this offering, advisers have a way of nuturing a pool of young prospects in a scaled way. Proviing these clients with helpful information and improved financial literacy content will keep the adviser front of mind when the need for more comprehensive advice manifests.

With over USD$30 trillion being handed down to the millennials and Gen Y over the coming decades, a B2B scaled advice model is music to the ears of these financial advisers desperate to find a way to speak to their clients’ children, and the younger generation more broadly.

The robo-adviser offering is good at solving half of the equation. It provides the client with a way of increasing their financial literacy in a gamified way, and solves a relatively modest investment need for a modest cost.

It is remarkable how efficient many of these robos are at humanising their interface engagement with clients, and they are leading the charge on objectives based reporting. Watch this space!

However, the model fails with the underlying assumption that Generation Y is comfortable with putting all of their eggs in the robo basket. As the needs and implications of financial decisions become increasingly more complicated, the robo just doesn’t cut the mustard.

The landscape has shifted from robo advice to digital advice.

The wealth managers in the United States who get it have been keenly waiting for a Marstone style of offering to come to market with a platform that will integrate into their existing service. With a fully integrated digital offering, the wealth managers will have an internal referral source to engage with the clients who are in this space and put themselves in the front of the queue for when the more comprehensive advice needs present themselves.

The demise of the robo adviser breeds a digital advice era which will be a pivot point for the advisers here in Australia who embrace the service. We need only to look over the pond and observe how the landscape is shifting in the States.

By Ray Jaramis, Treysta Financial Life Management

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Ray Jaramis

XY Adviser will host its first full-day event in November, continuing its pursuit of improving advice in Australia. Through sharing innovative ideas among members, sessions will be focused on providing content advisers can implement immediately in their business.

With a goal of setting a clear example for increased standards of financial advice, The Modern Adviser event has been created in line with XY Adviser’s founding vision – the sharing of ideas and assets, adviser-to-adviser, to achieve positive change for the industry.

Ray Jaramis, co-founder of XY Adviser and Financial Life Manager at Treysta Financial Life Management said The Modern Adviser is a step in the group’s larger plan to facilitate opportunities for advisers to share learnings relevant to financial advice of the future.

“The adviser, and in turn the client is always front of mind for us at our events. Our presenters are almost exclusively passionate advisers who will be providing practical information around the modern techniques and strategies that are working for their business and clients right now. What truly sets The Modern Adviser apart is that the presenters are all given a mandate to be very practical. Each session is designed to give advisers inspiration on how they could do things differently when they get to their desks the following morning.”

Mr Jaramis said XY Adviser is staying true to its roots, designing the event to give advisers at all stages of their career a support network.

“We see a real opportunity for young advisers like ourselves to help each other out, and communicate and workshop how we can make a bigger difference to the lives of more Australians. The Modern Adviser will take our vision to another level – it’s our biggest event to date.”

The Modern Adviser event will be broken up in to three sections; advice, business management, and technology. Event partners include Zurich, CoreLogic, IOOF, Midwinter and Centuria.

Since its inception in 2014, the XY Adviser LinkedIn group now has almost 400 members, something the group hopes to increase organically as more advisers hear about the community and feel like their values and vision align.

To register, visit The Modern Adviser

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