Xplan and Coin most popular software providers

Xplan and Coin are the two most popular financial planning software providers, according to a new report released by Investment Trends.

The '2010 Investment Trends Planner Technology Report' released in December 2010 found one-third of surveyed planners used IRESS-owned Xplan as their main financial planning software, 20 per cent used Macquarie-owned Coin, while Visiplan had 10 per cent of the market share.

Financial planners’ overall satisfaction with the software they used slightly increased from 52 per cent in 2009 to 54 per cent in 2010, largely driven by Xplan and Coin, while Midwinter also received high satisfaction ratings.

“When we asked planners in detail why they’re happier with Xplan and Coin, they said they were happy with their planning software’s ability to help and select investments to recommend,” Investment Trends analyst Recep Peker said.

Peker also noted a quarter of surveyed financial planners who stopped using their financial planning software cited complexity as the main reason.

Software providers also managed to reduce the time it takes to produce Statements of Advice by 40 minutes, from 7 hours and 36 minutes on average in 2006 to 6 hours and 50 minutes in 2010.

“I’m guessing there is room for improvement, but one thing which helps to speed up this process is the integration between planning software and platforms,” Peker said.