Digital to enable advice improvements: CFS

CFS is investing heavily in adviser technology but the firm believes it would enable rather than replace in-person financial advice.

Jonathan Armitage, chief investment officer at CFS, who joined the firm last August from almost a decade at NAB, explained how the firm was spending $430 million to improve its technology for clients and advisers.

This would see CFS launch the wrap platform with FNZ’s technology to create a proposition for advisers and would improve the adviser and client experience. It would particularly focus on managed account management, investment selection, adviser services, advice technology and data management.

As well as FNZ, the firm was also partnering with Bravura Solutions and Tech Mahindra to incorporate FirstChoice onto its Bravura Sonata Alta solution.

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Asked by Money Management where he saw the role of technology in providing advice, Armitage said: “Digitalisation everywhere is an inevitability but it is not a substitution for people who need personalised advice or people who have large balances, it cannot provide those bespoke requirements they need.

“Also, digitalisation won’t be able to help people navigate turbulent market conditions and their changing circumstances such as if they receive an inheritance, move house, get divorced or become ill which are all investment-impacting events. You can’t deal with those sorts of things via an app on your phone.

“CFS are supportive of technology and how it can reduce costs and help to build scale but we see it as a way to help inform and to educate in the most effective way. It is not a substitute; it is an enabler.”

The $430 million investment in technology would hopefully help advisers receive a seamless service, he said, which would allow them to provide a “holistic picture” for their clients on their finances rather than relying on multiple products.

“We want to be a low-cost provider and to make sure the interface between us and the client or the adviser is as seamless as possible, we want it to be efficient and frictionless.

“We hope the changes will address challenges faced by advisers in terms of drawing in data from multiple providers and allow them to provide a holistic picture to their clients. Advisers use 10-15 different systems and we can help them produce that in one.”