Lonsec Research has now launched the next generation of its market-leading iRate platform, providing financial advisers with a powerful array of new tools and capabilities to drive their investment analysis. The new iRate features enhanced portfolio construction, research and reporting tools, all of which will enable financial advisers to generate more in-depth analysis, as well as clearly show the value their advice is adding to their client’s portfolio.
The financial advice industry is undergoing significant transformation, with rapid changes in technology and increased competition presenting both challenges and opportunities for financial advice businesses. Despite these new pressures, advisers must remain focused on the fundamentals of financial advice provision, on delivering outcomes related to client objectives, and in particular on how they can adapt the wealth of market data and information available to them in a way that is meaningful for individual clients.
“As the financial advice industry becomes increasingly sophisticated, more demands are placed on advisers, especially when it comes to demonstrating the quality and depth of their advice,” said Lonsec Research CEO Matt Olsen. “Our aim is to leverage the financial adviser’s knowledge and expertise, and to give them additional tools so they can continue creating better investment outcomes for their clients. We need to be continually evolving our financial adviser tools, just as advisers are evolving with the industry. This is what the next gen iRate achieves.”
The iRate platform provides access to the full suite of Lonsec Research analysis and investment tools. Along with the current managed funds research and standard portfolio construction tools, iRate will now offer time-series portfolios, allowing users to analyse a portfolio’s performance where changes have been made to the holdings or asset allocation over time, as well as create user-defined product asset classes. This means users can easily compare their portfolio’s allocation and performance with peer portfolios and benchmarks, as well as track allocation changes over time.
Advanced portfolio reporting enables users to analyse portfolio performance over any period, and users can also choose to supplement their report with Lonsec Research market commentary and individual share analysis. For the first time, iRate enables users to create and analyse equity-only model portfolios, with fully integrated equity research. iRate also allows users to import and export portfolios easily, including to and from Xplan.
Better, Smarter iRate
The latest iRate platform represents a major improvement in terms of features and functionality. The new iRate will enable users to:
· Create time-series portfolios: Users can report on and analyse a portfolio where one or more changes have been made to asset allocation and/or manager selection since inception. Users can then compare with other portfolios using the Portfolio Comparison and Quantitative Analysis tools, based on 16 different performance metrics.
· Switch products between asset classes: Users can allocate a product to a different asset class by simply dragging and dropping a fund to the appropriate asset class category.
· Import and export portfolios: Users can load a portfolio, or multiple portfolios, into Portfolio Construction using an Excel template, with completed portfolios then exportable to Excel. The Excel template is compatible with Xplan, allowing users to quickly and easily load client portfolios between the two tools.
· Generate customisable portfolio reports: When generating portfolio reports, users now have the option to add a Market Commentary report, providing a snapshot of key market movements over the previous calendar month. Users can now select the start date as well as the end date, allowing reporting to cover different periods. For portfolios including direct equities, the Stock Viewpoint can also be included.
· Create direct equity portfolios: Users will be able to create and analyse equity-only model portfolios. The customised new tool is designed specifically for use with direct equity holdings, and includes fully integrated analysis from Lonsec Equity Research.
Source: Lonsec
