Cash-flow management underpins the role that financial planners play in creating stable foundations on which their clients can build wealth. For this reason, products such as those offered by BOQ Specialist – formerly Investec Bank (Australia) Limited – play an important role.
BOQ Specialist – a wholly owned subsidiary of Bank of Queensland, formed through the acquisition of Investec’s Professional Finance business – provides a suite of financial products and services specifically tailored for financial planners.
“Whether by delivering products that are a little bit more innovative, helping [clients] when they want to be helped rather than just when the bank’s open for business – I suppose that underpins a lot about where we differentiate ourselves within the market,” says Gareth Bird, head of adviser services, BOQ Specialist.
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“For us, that’s where the model is different from the other providers out there.”
BOQ Specialist has been servicing this space for two years. This is built on its delivery of a similar model to accountants (for whom it has provided financial products for around seven years) and medical practitioners (for 15 to 20 years).
“For us, the really exciting part about the adviser space is that they can become valuable advocates for your products,”Bird says.
“Do advisers either use the financial products and services that they recommend themselves, or do they not? If advisers have a great experience with us they are likely to recommend us to their clients.
“On our side, if they have a good everyday banking experience, it makes them consider what other products we offer and often they take up more products with us. Our solutions do make a difference then, and they [advisers] are able to make those recommendations or suggestions to their clients, whether in an advice or non-advice dynamic.
“For those advisers that do look after cash-flow management…some of the products and offerings we have would be very well suited to that kind of advice.”
Just as this represents a significant opportunity, Bird also acknowledges the challenge in ensuring financial planners have a positive experience with the products.
“It’s been a conscious decision of ours to go down that route,” he says. “Effectively, we are putting a lot of existing business, technically, at risk because if you end up doing a bad job on their own personal finances, are they going to trust you to look after their clients?”
However, Bird stresses that they’re not trying to target the mass market, instead focusing on niche offerings, backed up by very specific infrastructure and support.
