The requirement for a more comprehensive due diligence process, additional compliance burdens and more time to meet best interest duty have collectively increased the regulation of personal advice since the Royal Commission.

This has simultaneously increased the cost of financial advice and reduced the number of advisers available to provide it.  

Meanwhile, the need for financial advice has only continued to grow, with one in five people saying the pandemic has led to dramatic financial changes and 25% of people worrying more about money above other concerns. 

Financial advice improves wellbeing and should be both accessible and affordable for everyone who wants or needs it. 

Traditional comprehensive financial advice has become more expensive and less accessible and not everyone wants or needs to deal with all their potential financial goals simultaneously or continuously, as in a comprehensive financial plan.

Consumer trends on what the modern client is looking for from their financial planning relationships has also shifted. The modern client values simplicity and the use of technology is essential to streamline the client experience and remove roadblocks from the process.

Successful businesses are rethinking the way they interact with their clients and are leveraging technology to better deliver to their customers’ preferences, scale their business models and leave more time to focus on delivering a quality advice experience.

The fast change in current market conditions has underlined the need to make a genuine shift to goals-based advice rather than intuitively incorporate it into traditional advice processes.

A goals-based discussion can help reveal a client’s priorities and values and evaluate whether their goals are achievable and make the difficult trade-offs needed. It can substantially improve the outcome of advice and fosters a conversation that is highly tailored, holds great meaning and relevance with a focus on the areas that matter the most to the client.

Midwinter has recently launched MultiGoal – a simple yet powerful goal optimsation engine for advisers. Here we explore how MultiGoal enables advice businesses to effectively innovate, increase efficiency and find new ways to reach and engage clients.

Foster strong long-term adviser-client relationships.

It’s likely that over time, customers who start with MultiGoal as an entry piece of advice will evolve to seeking comprehensive advice for more complex circumstances from traditional advisers. 

Having used MultiGoal to demonstrate the value of advice to your clients, and changing their lifestyles, the likelihood of them as a returning customer increases given the value demonstrated and pre-existing relationship.

MultiGoal is a great tool for many stages of the customer life cycle. It also encourages clients to imagine and connect with their ‘future selves’ and to think about their goals for retirement. A traditional review typically focuses on easily measurable areas such as investment performance when they should measure whether a client remains on track to achieving their goals. MultiGoal is key in reviewing strategies and, if needed, pivoting to ensure the client is on track to achieve their goals.

Introduce new service offerings to expand your target market.

MultiGoal will help advice practices and advisers take their business to the next level. The cost effectiveness and scalability of MultiGoal lowers barriers to entry to advice for everyday Australians and allows advice businesses to address a large unadvised market who need quality, easy to access and affordable advice. MultiGoal is an opportunity for advice business to provide a new service offering and pricing model that allows them to profitably service entry level clients and grow their client book.

Additionally, by giving these consumers easy and affordable access to financial advice, advice businesses can make a significant positive difference to their customers’ long-term financial wellbeing and support the health of the financial advice profession.

Gain efficiencies so you can focus on what matters most – delivering a quality advice experience.

The need to streamline the advice process is crucial in the already demanding financial planning profession. With little more than the click of a button, MultiGoal will automatically suggest strategic recommendations tailored to your client which they can takeaway to start them on the pathway to their ideal financial future.

These actionable items are delivered in a statement of advice that can be issued and charged for after a single meeting.

Adviser’s clients can complete their personal and financial information in the Client Portal prior to their appointment and have this information securely flow through to MultiGoal, reducing double-data entry for the adviser and ensuring the appointment time is spent where it’s most valuable.

Click here to find out more about MultiGoal.

The post Three reasons you should try MultiGoal in your practice appeared first on Midwinter.

The advice industry has been discussing goals-based advice for years, but successfully implementing it has been another matter, according to Midwinter’s Head of Product Andrew Zietara.

Everyone’s talking about it, but few actually do it, and those who aren’t feel under pressure to say they can. Despite all the talk about goals-based advice in the profession, the reality of how to deliver it still seems unclear.

A goals-based advice process helps clients pinpoint what really is important in their life before exploring the strategies, trade-offs, and probabilities those choices entail.

The initial results from the Quality of Advice Review indicate a move towards regulating the outcome of advice rather than the process. Goals-based advice represents the epitome of the proposed obligation to provide ‘good advice’ as it is directly shaped around the goals of the client.

And while most advisers would acknowledge that a client’s objectives should always be the starting point for advice, traditional technology hasn’t kept pace. Many goals-based solutions have tended to be too simplistic to provide useful results or over-engineered and complex; finding the right balance is crucial.

For advisers, this means working around client goals within these technological limitations. The outcome is client goals are often still retrofitted to fit a pre-existing risk profile, advice strategies and products.

Start with goals, not strategies

Goals-based advice can help reveal a client’s priorities and values. It’s a great way to start a discussion because clients are often unaware of what is driving their own actions. For example, it’s not common for discussions to reveal basic financial and lifestyle issues between couples.

Unfortunately, it’s all too easy to take a short-cut to investment strategies without a clear idea of the goals driving them.

A client may want access to the Age Pension (a strategy), but this is just one means to an unspoken goal. Another client may want to buy an investment property (another strategy) but without a clear understanding of the reason why, a better alternative strategy may be left on the table.

Goals-based advice aligns perfectly with advisers’ current best interests duty and related obligations – as well as the future obligation to provide ‘good advice’ as proposed in the Quality of Advice Review – by ensuring advice meets a client’s objectives, financial situation and needs. Goals are specific to each client and untethered from products and investments.

But even client reviews may neglect goals – they tend to focus on easily measurable areas such as investment performance when they should measure whether a client remains on track to achieving their objectives. By actively reviewing the latter, strategies can be changed as needed.

More pressure to make a goals-based approach scalable

The fast change in current market conditions has underlined the need to make a genuine shift to goals-based advice rather than intuitively incorporate it into traditional advice processes.

Inflation is soaring at the fastest pace in decades, placing new cost of living pressures on clients. Official interest rates have quickly risen, adding hundreds of dollars each month to the average mortgage.

Common goals, such as home ownership, are becoming harder to achieve. A rising number of retirees are being forced to use their super to pay off their home. The percentage of pre-retirees who owned their home outright fell from 70 per cent to 47 per cent between 1990 and 2015, according to research by the ABS.

A goals-based advice approach can help clients evaluate whether their goals are still achievable and make the difficult trade-offs needed. It can substantially improve the outcome of advice – even the act of writing down goals significantly increases the odds of achieving them, according to research.

Tech to support goals-based advice and boost engagement

The relatively high cost of advice, partly driven by regulations, has long been in the spotlight. Goals-based advice takes time and can be expensive without the right tech solution.

However, change is underway, with the government’s Quality of Advice Review explicitly calling out digital advice as playing a key role to lift innovation and improve accessibility.

Savvy advisers are looking for technology that supports their business now and can help it transition with the changing regulatory environment and consumer expectations.

The tools are increasingly available to make goals-based advice a fundamental part of the advice process, with tools that are:

• Engaging and effective for clients, yet simple to use for advisers.
• Separated from products and strategies.
• Encourage clients to achieve their goals by helping them imagine and connect with their ‘future selves.’
• Demonstrate the value of advice to clients by changing their lifestyles.

Goals-based advice is now set to take centre stage as the industry continues to evolve.

Midwinter’s new MultiGoal module provides a simple and visually engaging way for advisers to provide a real-time goals-based strategy for their customers. To find out more, head to midwinter.com.au/multigoal or click here to request a demo.

The post Can technology finally make goals-based advice a reality? appeared first on Midwinter.

Midwinter, a Bravura Solutions Limited company, has today announced the extension of its advice software with the launch of MultiGoal, a strategic goal optimisation engine for financial advisers.

Advisers using Midwinter’s financial advice software can now access the interactive and visually engaging tool to assist their clients in achieving their financial goals, such as paying off their mortgage or saving for a holiday, based on their situation and goal priority.

With MultiGoal, advisers can provide goals-based advice in real-time, including reviewing and prioritising a client’s goals and generating a quick statement of advice. It can be used in front of clients as part of an educational and consultative discussion, showing the value of advice and strengthening advisers’ client pipelines.  

The solution uses client financial information to quickly provide strategic direction, with multiple goals, scenarios and trade-offs evaluated in one meeting.

Andrew Zietara, Head of Product at Midwinter says, “At Midwinter we are continuously innovating our software so our clients can provide better financial outcomes. We are pleased to roll out a solution that helps the advice profession showcase the value of advice while reducing upfront costs to deliver this advice.”

“MultiGoal’s easy-to-use interface stands out for its simplicity and its ability to be used in front of clients to show the impact of different goal priorities, allowing for more relevant conversations during client meetings and reduced time and effort to produce a statement of advice.”

MultiGoal is available now following a successful beta trial with Midwinter customers.

For more information on MultiGoal or to request a demo, visit www.midwinter.com.au/multigoal.

– ENDS –

Media Contact

For media enquiries please contact:

Deborah Dalziel
Marketing Manager, Midwinter Financial Services
ddalziel@midwinter.com.au

About Midwinter Financial Services Pty Ltd

Midwinter Financial Services Pty Ltd (Midwinter) is an innovative provider of financial advice software. Based in Sydney, Australia, Midwinter was founded in 2006 and acquired by Bravura Solutions Limited in August 2019.

Midwinter’s cloud-based software solutions improve efficiency, scalability, compliance, and client engagement for hundreds of Australia’s leading advice practices, dealer groups, wealth management and superannuation firms.

Our solutions meet the evolving needs of the advice industry, its consumers, and the professionals who provide financial advice.

About Bravura Solutions Limited

Bravura Solutions Limited is a leading provider of software solutions for the wealth management, life insurance, and funds administration industries. Our solutions are underpinned by functionally rich technology that enables modernisation, consolidation, and simplification. Our software solutions enable our clients to increase speed to market, provide a seamless digital experience and address ongoing changes in financial services regulation. Backed by over 30 years of experience, our on-premise, managed, hosted and cloud solutions are used by many of the world’s leading financial institutions, who entrust trillions of dollars in assets held in accounts to our systems. We support our clients with a team of more than1,500 people in 17offices across Australia, New Zealand, United Kingdom, Europe, Africa, and Asia.

To learn more, visit www.bravurasolutions.com.

The post Midwinter Launches Goal Optimisation Engine for Advisers appeared first on Midwinter.

In this podcast, they talk about ways that advisers can leverage technology to create new operating models and fee structures in their practice, and better engage and retain clients.

You can find out more here or listen to the podcast ‘The evolution of goals based advice’ via the links below.

The post Midwinter on the IFA Show appeared first on Midwinter.