Advice comparison site pitches client poaching
Another new start-up hoping to be the TripAdvisor of the financial advice space is encouraging advisers to use its platform to cash in on the poor service of their counterparts by snatching dissatisfied clients.
HashChing launched in September as a social media platform where users can rate advisers, banks, mortgage and insurance brokers, with the reviews then uploaded to various social media sites using hashtags.
It is promoting itself to advisers through adviser-client matching site, ProAdviser.com.au, which currently has 1000 advisers on its books.
The new venture joins a number of recently-publicised ratings sites aimed at improving transparency in financial advice, including Adviser Ratings and the soon-to-be-launched Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) register.
HashChing co-founder, Mandeep Sodhi, said its main motivation was to restore trust that he feels the industry has lost, through incidents like the recent Commonwealth Bank advice scandal.
He said he encourages advisers to use the site to “pick up leads” and “vie for the same customer”.
“We already see (on HashChing) a lot of banks vying for the same customer,” he said.
“An example is someone on our platform saying ‘I’m not happy with BankWest, I want to move to NAB’, then NAB got that reply on their Twitter handle and BankWest as well, then NAB was the first one to reply saying ‘here’s the link guys, switch to us, it’s very simple’, then BankWest replied saying ‘we’ll fix it for you’.
“So already you see two major banks fighting for one customer on our platform. That’s the power we’ve got.”
The site is currently free, but will be funded via a currently-undecided subscription fee from January.
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