HUB24 and BT Panorama have announced new features to their respective platforms in a step towards supporting client engagement and efficiencies, and driving down adviser costs.
HUB24 has implemented new data feeds and automation capabilities that will enable advisers to report on clients’ other investments, including direct property, managed funds and other assets.
According to a recent Investment Trends report, over half (51 per cent) of advisers are manually preparing reports on their clients’ non-custody assets, making it important for them to be able to integrate data from outside of the platform to deliver a complete picture of their clients’ wealth.
“By leveraging this capability, advisers using the HUB24 platform can obtain a holistic view of their clients’ asset allocation simply by adding in other investments such as property values, other Australian or international shares, private equity funds or even collectibles such as art or wine,” said HUB24 chief product and innovation officer, Craig Apps.
These other investments can be integrated across HUB24’s Portfolio Dashboard, InvestorHUB and HUB24 Present.
Apps notes that, through ongoing discussions with advisers, the firm has identified a range of other features that would make it easier for advisers to have more holistic conversations with their clients.
“As a result, advisers now have the ability to customise the terms used for asset classes, for example, ‘listed infrastructure’ versus ‘alternatives’, enabling them to use consistent language that their clients understand across multiple documents, which also supports compliance processes,” he added.
Meanwhile, BT Panorama has announced enhancements to its service request tracker, which will see the capability of the service request tracker broadened to allow advisers to request digital consent for most forms that are submitted online.
Investors will be notified of the request for digital consent and can review the form and respond via the web and mobile. According to BT, there are currently 31 forms available for online submission, covering a range of processes from account maintenance to transfers.
Later this year, visibility of requests on account closures will be improved on the service request tracker, with additional details in progress, to allow advisers to track the request from the initial validation stage to asset selldowns and final payments.
Usage of the service request tracker grew by 44 per cent in the six months to June 2023, the firm said.
BT Panorama’s mobile app was also updated in early July to give advisers and investors the ability to request Centrelink schedules. The information can be requested in minutes whereas the turnaround time for manual requests was previously up to four days.
Next month, the app will be updated further to include product updates, year end and process cut-off dates, webinars and the service request digital consent enhancements.
A new bulk client reporting feature will also be introduced to allow advisers and support staff to create up to 20 reporting groups, develop customised report packs and generate a suite of reports for multiple clients.
The BT Panorama platform will be updated to support the growth of managed accounts through the introduction of a new reporting capability tailored for investment managers that will allow access to a range of portfolio and business reports directly online.
“We’ve listened to advisers’ feedback, and we’re delivering on our service promise by investing in BT Panorama and providing updates that may help advice practices with efficiency,” said Matt Rady, BT chief executive.
And on Asgard and Netwealth I get a Centrelink Schedule in 5 seconds. Panorama was built as a stealth vehicle to bypass advisers. We bring them clients, they take over from there. It didn’t quite work out in the long run for many of these platforms including CFS and now suddenly they’re our friends again? With friends like that, who needs enemies.