Consultant-charging match service wants to shake up FS



A newly-launched website wants to turn the financial services industry "on its head" by data matching consultants with firms for a 10 per cent cut of their paycheck.
FindAConsultant was launched last month with the aim of lining up businesses with specialist consultants and charging the business nothing for the service.
Its founder, Sharon Melamed, said the "totally data-driven" site had its eyes on the lucrative financial services sector from its launch date and has already attracted banks, a superannuation company and an insurance company.
"We believe that the sheer convenience of a go-to-site for all types of consulting services fills a much needed gap in the market - particularly in financial services, where there is a constant appetite for consultants in areas such as M&A, risk, analytics, strategy, change and project management," Melamed said.
She said the matching is almost entirely handled by the website's software, with a consultants' profiles held in a database and measured against the firm's needs, which are entered in a tick-a-box format.
"It's very much data driven so there's no room for cushy relationships with this or that consultant," she said.
"The only human element is that every request is quality checked, because there's one question where people can insert a free-form comment about special or rare requirements and a human being has to go over that and overlay that with whatever the matching software has come up with."
"However, the majority of requests are completely taken care of by the software," she said.
Recommended for you
AZ NGA has entered into a strategic partnership with national advice firm MiQ Private Wealth, as a way to provide a succession solution, as well as career development opportunities for staff.
While the advice profession struggles under growing operating costs, Adviser Ratings has found more than half of practices – some 58 per cent – that generate less than $250,000 in revenue report no profit at all.
The Federal Court has ordered the freezing of assets and the appointment of receivers to two entities linked to Australian Fiduciaries, ASIC’s latest move in an ongoing investigation into the company’s managed investment schemes.
Off the back of the August adviser exam results, the profession has seen 17 new entrants hit the Financial Adviser Register (FAR) this week, helping numbers return to positive territory.