PictureWealth acquires Neo Financial Services
Wealth fintech PictureWealth Holdings has acquired financial services licensee Neo Financial Services (NFS), for an undisclosed sum.
NFS would become a wholly-owned subsidiary of PictureWealth, and Mark Edman, NFS managing director, would take on the group chief operating officer role.
Neal Cross, PictureWealth co-founder and chair, said Edman was a “world-class talent” who would digitally transform the entire industry, one financial planning business at a time.
“We have built an engine of innovation that enables us to rapidly onboard new financial advisers, optimise how they run their business and give customers a best in class digital platform while at the same time helping them reduce their product related fees,” Cross said.
David Pettit, the other co-founder and group chief executive, said they found the leadership team at NFS shared their outlook on the future of financial advice and wanted to align to take the companies forward together.
“That’s why we felt acquiring NFS with its robust compliance protocols was the way forward so that we could offer advisers and their clients a new home amidst very turbulent market conditions,” Pettit said.
Edman said the acquisition allowed a unified and streamlined approach to provide consumers an accessible personalised service.
“The use of this fintech will assist in lifting the financial barrier man consumer may experience as the industry evolves,” Edman said.
Recommended for you
As the first quarter of 2024 comes to a close, Money Management looks back on the corporate regulator’s bans and AFSL cancellations in the financial advice sector.
Insignia Financial is holding ‘relatively steady’ onto its rank as Australia’s second-largest financial advice licensee after the Godfrey Pembroke exit but Count is hot on its heels.
Liberal senator Slade Brockman has said the government needs to have a “cold hard look” at the level of regulation in the financial advice space and the costs of running a business.
FAAA chief executive, Sarah Abood, has warned changes in the first tranche of the QAR legislation around advice fees documentation could create more work for advisers rather than less.