More competition in advice software, but Iress still top
Financial advice firms may be the beneficiary of increased competition in the planning software space, with a new report from Investment Trends pointing to the increasing influence of offshore players.
The pointer was contained in the latest Investment Trends ‘Advice Technology Benchmark Report’ which confirmed the manner in which recent transactions saw Australian software and back-office applications become owned by companies operating across international borders.
The report pointed to the acquisitions of AdviserLogic, Midwinter and Coin, noting that they represented the second, third and fourth most widely used planning applications after IRESS.
Investment Trends analyst, Ian Webster, said that while local advice technology developers were focused on lifting practice efficiency and anticipating future changes in advice delivery models, there was emerging competition from applications likes the Salesforce-based Wealth Connect and Intelliflo’s Intelligent Office from the UK.
“It is a trend that is likely to grow,” he said. “Now more than ever, advice firms have access to an array of globally available, low-cost digital services to manage their client relationships and augment their advice production applications,” Webster said.
But in awarding its first-ever Advice Tech Benchmark Report awards, Investment Trends nonetheless assigned top spot to Iress Xplan.
However the spoils were then dividend between Morningstar’s recently-acquired Adviser Logic as Best Digital Advice Process, Advice Intelligence for Best Goals-based Advice Application, Astute Wheel for Best Client Discovery Application, Xeppo for Best Business Management Application and Wealth Central, IOOF for Best New Advice Tech Application.
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