The Commonwealth Bank has enacted a series of changes within theFinancial Wisdomdealer group including the waiving of new license fees, expanded recommended list and the appointment of Sue Wiley to the role of business advice general manager.
Wiley, who resigned from her position at Westpac last Wednesday after four years, will step into her new role at the Commonwealth on Monday.
Financial planning and advice services executive general manager Brett Himbury says the changes had been driven by adviser demands for more support in growing the Financial Wisdom business, a broader range of choice on the approved product list, more leads and improvements to dealer operations support.
Himbury says the changes would also see the introduction of a “pretty aggressive pricing strategy over the next 12 months”.
Part of this includes adviser licensee fees for planners joining an existing Financial Wisdom practice to be waived for one year while the group’s approved product list has expanded to include a newINGandAsgardsuperannuation fund, the Macquarie Wrap and a newColonial First StateProperty Syndication.
Financial Wisdom advisers will now also benefit from an arrangement through CommSec that supports direct share-trading capability including associated software support.
The bank’s front-end system – Café – has also seen improvements aimed at decreasing plan preparation time, including the addition of a number of “quick plans” for non-complex plans and ten new calculators.
Himbury says he has promised Financial Wisdom advisers a new lead generation program be implemented by 19 December this year.
“The aim is to help the growth of the FinWis business. It’s strong, it’s stabilised, now we want to grow,” Himbury says.
“While the Commonwealth has had market share for providing traditional banking services to business markets, the advice proposition to date has been modest. We want to grow it fundamentally – both in terms of quality and the number of people we provide it to.”
Himbury says while the bank hopes the growth will be “significant”, there are no specific targets in place. Financial Wisdom currently has 400 planners.
