Synchron signs onto X-Plan

Melbourne-based dealer group Synchron has entered a heads of agreement with technology provider Iress to provide X-Plan software for its 110 advisers across Australia.

The decision to “embrace X-Plan as its preferred adviser software option is part of a broader strategy to attract younger advisers to the group”, according to Synchron director Paul Riegelhuth.

He believes the X-Plan software will help to give momentum to a current campaign to attract young advisers, which has seen 12 advisers added to the group in the past 12 months.

“Besides, my daughter, who is a young adviser with the group, told me this is the sort of software that young advisers want to use these days.

“As we are desperately trying to lower the age of our advisers, many of whom are in the 50 to 65 year age bracket, we decided to give her advice a go,” he said.

The X-Plan software is “really much more than a tool for telling you how much a transaction is going to cost — it’s a whole business model that will appeal to younger advisers”, he said.

“Additionally, it has the flexibility to allow you to purchase only the modules that you need, so, for example, if you don’t do insurance, you don’t need to purchase that program.”

Synchron plans to create a hub from the software that will be “dedicated to ourselves, with our own branding, and which our advisers will be able to plug into for our own compliance documentation, etcetera”.

“So rather than let our advisers continue to be little satellite organisations the new software will allow us to take a consolidated approach to our operations,” Riegelhuth said.