Protax in huge expansion
Queensland-based financial planning group Protax is on a huge expansion drive.
It has formed a new dealer group with ANZ Banking Group and is poised to expand its own numbers rapidly. It will also introduce a back office outsourcing serv-ice, a paraplanning service and some new products not yet available in Austra-lia.
Peter Richards
Queensland-based financial planning group Protax is on a huge expansion drive.
It has formed a new dealer group with ANZ Banking Group and is poised to expand its own numbers rapidly. It will also introduce a back office outsourcing serv-ice, a paraplanning service and some new products not yet available in Austra-lia.
Peter Richards, who established Protax in 1981, says a joint venture with ANZ Banking Group will have a stake in a new dealer group called AustAccount.
About 350 accounting affiliates will be recruited to join AustAccount over the next two years and each will be given an equity stake in both the group and its products.
During the same time, Protax, which has more than $300 million in funds under advice, plans to build its own adviser numbers from about 100 at present to 250.
Protax will target highly skilled financial planners who want to corner the top end of the market. AustAccount will be geared at traditional accountants who want to offer financial planning services to existing or new customers.
Richards says Protax has spent the past 14 years developing software that is "streets ahead of the rest of the industry". In addition to being used by the two dealer groups, Protax will use these systems to offer a back office outsourcing service to dealer groups and advisers.
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