More than 200 planners have registered for access to a new online tool which aims to streamline the advice process for planners by automating time consuming tasks. The website, launched by financial technology company Decimal, hopes to assist planners with the initial “fact find” by automating pre-populated information about the client such as age, salary and census data collected from the Australian Bureau of Statistics. Advisers can alter a variety of fields to account for a client’s different risk levels, investment options, asset and income profiles and even future life events, such as having children.
The site then calculates a variety of investment strategy options, which can be compared onscreen and tailored to suit each client’s needs, and produces a compliant statement of advice (SoA) using the Financial Planning Association of Australia’s (FPA’s) short-form SoA as the template. Jan Kolbusz, managing director of Decimal, says the website will “revolutionise the speed, efficiency and delivery of high-quality financial advice in Australia”. “The web has transformed the front-end processes of many industries; in our industry, it hasn’t,” he says.
“This gives advisers access to a single console which performs all the functions they need to provide expert advice.” Kolbusz says the online tool has been developed over two years to create an “end-to-end” solution for planners. Decimal has already received feedback from users by email and through its online forum offering suggestions on how to improve the site. “We want this to keep evolving directly relative to where the advisers think they will derive the most benefit,” Kolbusz says. Decimal is independently owned and is freely available to all financial advisers at http://www. decimal.com.au
