Sun rises on Singapore invasion

MajorSingaporean corporates may be eyeing Australia’s telecommunications, airlines and financial services industries, but a band of smaller Australian financial services groups are seeking to redress the imbalance.

Financial planning software specialists BOSS and XPLAN have both announced plans to enter the Singapore market as a stepping stone into the broader Asian market. Part of the push involves a joint venture between the two groups to distribute each other’s software in the Singapore and Australian markets.

The unveiling of plans follows the announcement by financial planning giant Professional Investment Services that it is to set up a number of offices in Singapore in October. It also follows work done by former Financial Planning Association chairman Wes McMaster in Singapore as a part of his professorial role with RMIT and as an independent consultant.

XPLAN was set up by former Visiplan software executives Jason Hoang and Andrew Walsh earlier this year to develop high-end financial planning software specifically for the Singapore market. Under the joint venture arrangement with BOSS, XPLAN will distribute the BOSS risk software in Singapore as a bolt-on to its financial planning package, while BOSS will offer XPLAN’s high-end financial planning software as a addition to its risk and financial planning packages.

XPLAN director Andrew Walsh says that while the XPLAN software has been primarily developed for the Singapore market, the group is using the same underlying technology to produce packages for other countries and making adjustments for different regulatory regimes.

“While Singapore is in many ways a maturing financial planning market, it is also considered the hub of South East Asia. Many of the groups operating in Singapore also have offices in Malaysia and Hong Kong,” Walsh says.

BOSS chief operating officer Daryl Curie says overseas moves, such as the Singapore joint venture, are transforming BOSS into an increasingly global concern. Deals such as that signed with financial services giant Old Mutual in South Africa have propelled the group’s proportion of revenue earned offshore to about one-third. Curie says the deal in Singapore, on top of negotiations with a number of players in Europe, Japan, Korea and the UK, will push that proportion to closer to two-thirds of revenue.

XPLAN expects its financial planning software, which operates either offline or Internet-based, will be ready for the Singapore market by next month. The combined XPLAN/ BOSS package is scheduled to be launched into the Australian market by the end of the year.