Navigator Australia has moved into the provision of back office services with the rollout of what it is calling a back office master trust.
The service, N-able, will offer advisers access to a range of back office services through a range of suppliers, including Navigator.
The services will include technical advice on regulatory issues, Australian Financial Services Licence (AFSL) application support, compliance, training, investment research, risk research, financial planning software and commission management.
Navigator itself will provide the technical advice and and investment research and team up with Integratec, Accent and Adviser Solutions for AFSL application support services and compliance.
It will also be involved with the provision of training with Integratec, with risk research handled by Plantech Proplanner and commission management services provided by Dealer Management Systems.
The planning software in the service will be Plan IT, Navigator’s own system, which has been dogged with problems in recent months.
Navigator managing director Marc Mengler says a revamped version of Plan IT is “not too far away”, although he did not specify an exact date for the relaunch of the software.
Mengler says Navigator decided to roll out the new back office service after being repeatedly approached by advisers seeking assistance with the transition to the Financial Services Reform Act (FSRA) regime.
“The areas they were looking at were compliance, planning software and preparing for the Australian Financial Services Licence (AFSL) and we went to the market and drew together the services under the one vehicle,” Mengler says.
According to Mengler, advisers will be able to selectively pick the back office services they need and pay for each component separately.
Under this model Navigator will pay the costs for the services and advisers in turn will be billed on a regular basis by Navigator.
Navigator has also launched its own technical information service, Techpoint, which has a strong emphasis on superannuation issues and will be the technical support service in the back office system.
