Obtaining investment advice is a laborious endeavour in Australia – compliance burdens and clunky software makes the advice process inefficient and expensive at around $2,500 for an investment strategy.
As a result, fintech (financial technology) has been in the spotlight over the past 18 months. Firms such as NAB, AMP, Yellow Brick Road & a couple of startups have all launched or are about to launch online services where consumers can get low-cost & hassle free investment advice.
ProAdviser joins this mix of online services but tackles the problem by providing an end-to-end solution to its customer problems. Founded by Nikhil Sreedhar (24) & Schuman Zhang (25), ProAdviser is Australia’s first goal based investment manager.
Nikhil & Schuman built the ProAdviser platform in 3 months leveraging their experience & contacts from working at a boutique investment firm administering $1.5B in investments.
Unlike other investment services that make it difficult for clients to invest/redeem their money, ProAdviser is all about clients reaching their financial goals and executing on them.
One example is the goal of buying a home. Clients can accelerate the growth of their investments and once their deposit goals are reached, a ProAdviser Lending Manager will help clients secure the right mortgage for no additional cost.
According to Retirement Researcher, clients that get quality advice are 3% better off in the long run than those that do not. This is a fair value proposition considering ProAdviser will cost $0.64 per day for a $20,000 account to be professionally managed.
Fintech companies in recent times have a reputation of bashing financial advisers. Though there are a couple of bad apples (like in any industry) ProAdviser is not here to replace financial advisers – instead the platform aims to help entry level clients actually complete one goal at a time.