Iress partners with Challenger to launch advice-led retirement solution

With many Australians set to retire in the coming years, financial services firm Iress and investment management firm Challenger formed a strategic partnership to launch a solution to help advisers better serve retiring clients.

According to Deloitte Access Economics’ Advice in 2030: The Big Shift report, produced in collaboration with Iress last year, some 23 per cent of Australian adults will be aged 65 or over by 2034, signalling a strong demand for retirement advice over the next decade.

To help advisers address this demand, Iress and Challenger have announced a strategic partnership, through which they will develop a “first-of-its-kind technology solution” that will help advisers better serve their clients leading up to retirement.

Designed to improve the accessibility of retirement income products, the solution will be built on Iress’ existing Xplan infrastructure, expanding its capabilities to include an integrated advice journey for lifetime income products.

Set to be launched in 2026, the new solution will have an initial focus on the decumulation phase, covering factfinding, product selection, income stream calculations, strategy modelling, advice generation, and the advice review processes.

With a wave of retirees expected over the next decade, Kelli Willmer, Iress chief executive of wealth APAC, said there will be an “unprecedented demand for retirement advice”, noting the important role that retirement income products will play in the future of advice.

“However, currently, financial advisers face a range of challenges when trying to determine the right solution for their clients - including a fragmented advice process, inconsistent product information and complex regulatory requirements,” Willmer said.

She said the firm is pleased to partner with Challenger to address this need while helping streamline the advice process and ease of access to retirement income products.

“By fully integrating these products throughout the advice journey and leveraging Xplan’s extensive market coverage and decades of rich data and insights, we can empower advisers to better serve their clients as they navigate retirement. We hope that in time other providers will also sign up to provide a whole-of-industry picture when it comes to the lifetime income market.”

Challenger chief executive Nick Hamilton also praised this “industry-first partnership” with Iress to help address the needs of advisers and their retiring clients.

“Retirement is not a single life event, it’s a decades long journey where a retiree’s needs will continue to evolve, which is why developing a system that supports every stage of retirement is so important,” Hamilton said.

“We hope this partnership paves the way for more participants across the industry to work with Iress to ensure guaranteed income becomes a building block of retirement plans for millions more Australians —giving them the confidence to enjoy a secure, dignified, and fulfilling retirement.”