Lifespan launches digital investing solution
Lifespan Financial Planning has launched a digital investing solution to support the mass market of Australians priced out of receiving holistic personal advice from a financial planner.
The Lifespan Invest product would allow consumers to have their investment portfolio professionally managed for them by Lifespan and obtain access to a regular feed of financial literacy and educational content.
Chief executive, Eugene Ardino, said the company was proud to be taking proactive steps via a digital solution to seek to address the needs of Australians who would like professional assistance at a level below personal advice.
“In an ideal world, every Australian would be able to afford a personal financial adviser, however, the reality is that delivering personal advice has become increasingly expensive over recent years, inevitably excluding more and more people.
“Yes, the Government can take steps to reduce much of this cost by streamlining regulatory requirements – and we are extremely supportive of the Quality of Advice Review currently underway – however, the industry needs to also use robust and compliant new technologies to help address the growing advice gap.”
Ardino called on the rest of the financial advice industry to look to new technologies to enable them to reach and help mainstream Australia.
“The press is doing a great job in highlighting the size of the problem – thousands of advisers continue to exit the industry every year, and as a result, it is estimated another 100,000 Australians over the past year were ‘orphaned’, that is, had their adviser relationship terminated. The problem is clear – but equally, there are now digital solutions to this problem, and it’s up to the industry to embrace these new technologies,” he said
The Lifespan Invest solution is provided via a partnership with Melbourne-based fintech platform, OpenInvest. OpenInvest CEO and co-founder, Andrew Varlamos, said the company was excited to be partnering with Lifespan.
“The team at Lifespan understand that everyone is better off when they can access expert and professional help and are now - via OpenInvest technology - able to reach a much larger audience with their expertise,” Varlamos said.
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