IOOF has made an aggressive bid for a share of the administration market, renaming its in-house back office subsidiary Australian Financial Planning Network (AFPN) as OutScope and offering it to the wider financial planning community.
Previously, access to the system was limited to groups in which IOOF holds equity, but IOOF head of dealerships and alliances Scott Monotti said after “investing significantly” in the system, it was time to turn it out to market.
For IOOF, the move is in line with chief executive Ron Dewhurst’s plans to grow the business.
Speaking at an adviser briefing last week, Dewhurst indicated the possibility of “doing more with less”, and focusing on “deepening existing distribution relationships” rather than just chasing new ones.
“We have also been focusing on suites of products as we cannot be all things to all people,” Dewhurst said.
Monotti said the range of services provided by OutScope can be accessed individually or as a fully integrated back office solution.
“IOOF has invested significantly into OutScope, developing valuable systems such as web-based software solutions that dramatically reduce the time taken to produce statements of advice, statements of additional advice and reviews,” he said.
“It makes perfect business sense to open our offer to the wider market.”
AFPN, which has operated since 2002, will be officially launched under the new Outscope banner at the upcoming Financial Planning Association annual conference in December.
