Trulity issues challenge to “expensive” planners

A financial planning service has thrown down the gauntlet to the industry by offering consumers an online platform that is capped at $27 per month.

The Trulity financial planning service uses an online subscription fee model – with no asset based fees and no commissions – with principal Bill Kruger suggesting advisers have failed to connect with the wider community.

“The average Australian has little or no access to financial advice because the service is either too complicated, too expensive or they don’t trust the provider,” he said.

“The reality is that superannuation will be the second largest investment people will make in their lives, after buying a dwelling, yet most people do not take any interest or manage it well.”

Home computer 

Kruger identified lack of time, distrust of financial advisers, the current cost of advice, confusing language or embarrassment about their own budget situations as the main reasons consumers avoid engaging with a planner.

It is this revelation that led Trulity to develop a financial planning platform that allows consumers to manage their own financial affairs through their home computers and tablets which “eliminates these issues”.

“Trulity wants to transform the way financial planning is delivered to Australians by offering a simple low-cost solution, with no hidden charges, no asset based fees and no commissions,” said Kruger.

On its website, Trulity spruiks the service as available by subscription for only $27 per month, adding that a “comparable visit to a financial planner will cost upwards of $2 – 3,000 plus an additional cost of 1 – 2 per cent p.a. of what you invest.”

“We have chosen to use technology to provide an alternative to the current full service financial planning model,” said Kruger.

“Just as online stockbroking challenged traditional full service stockbroking, with all its accompanying benefits to consumers, we believe Trulity will be the start of revolutionizing the delivery of financial planning to the benefit of all.

Controversially, Kruger further claims that “Trulity is Australia’s first and only online financial planning platform created specifically for the retail market”.

Black box planning

The platform has a suite of modules designed to allow customers “full independence” from financial planners and flexibility to tailor their financial plans to suit their own needs.

The service also offers a “virtual financial planner that will answer practically any financial planning related question”.

It is offerings like this and ING Direct’s partnership with Money Solutions to offer a phone-based advice service that will test the regulatory framework around scaled advice.

Kruger added that Trulity sees itself as the “eyes and ears” that sifts through information to provide summarized data that customers can focus on thereby reducing their research time.

“Unfortunately, the majority of financial planners are now employed by the banks who view their planning divisions as a distribution channel for in-house product so objective advice is becoming harder to find,” he concluded.