Case study

Advice business: Vove Financial

Location: Glenelg, South Australia

Client base: 300+ (clients of accumulators and retirees)

Age of practice: 12 years

 

In 12-months, Vove Financial transitioned 90% of its client base to a client portal, reaping a range of benefits that have enhanced client engagement, referrals, back office, and its bottom line.

For the past three years, South Australian-based Vove Financial has been considering adopting a client portal.

Its original motivations were to use it as a point of differentiation, to help facilitate client engagement and to build the brand. It also wanted it to look good.

However, over the past 12-months, and after a couple of clients experienced cyber security incidents, Vove Financial became more focussed on the security benefits of a client portal.

“We had a couple of clients who had some close shaves and keeping client data secure became more and more important,” said Malcolm Simpson, Director and Financial Planner, Vove Financial.

Deciding on a provider

Following a review of market options, the business decided on myprosperity because they considered it the best client portal solution in market and liked that it was backed by HUB24.

“One of our biggest concerns was to land on a solution only for it to become null and void,” said Matt Hill, Director and Financial Planner, Vove Financial.

The myprosperity app was also a selling point and the ability to brand the client portal and customise the interface were attractive.

 

Client portal has positive business impact

According to Hill, the impact on the business of introducing a client portal has been ‘profound’, positively benefiting client experience, support staff productivity and turnaround times for documents, such as fee consent forms.

“We have much faster turnaround on paperwork coming back,” said Hill. “There is a lot of paperwork and things to sign and the quicker and easier we can make that for the client, helps us to implement advice and to meet our compliance requirements.”

It has also strengthened relationships between advisers and their clients, as advisers can track when clients log in and how they engage with the platform, creating additional touch points and meaningful opportunities for conversation.

 

Gateway to security and client conversations

The security and encryption features have enabled Vove Financial to position the client portal as a secure, all-in-one hub for clients’ information.

Its flexibility also enables clients to add their own folders, which is helping to broaden the conversation to the generational wealth transfer.

“We are using the portal to interact with clients and to secure and book appointments on the app, but ultimately a lot of clients are adding their own folders and estate planning docs so they can share information,” said Simpson. “This then merges into the transfer of wealth and ‘can I talk to your children?’.”

 

Cost benefits of client portal

According to Simpson, the introduction of a client portal has created cost savings for the business.

“It’s not always possible to get fee forms back face to face,” he said. “Now, we can do it via the portal which is quicker and obviously better for cashflow, revenue and the bottom line of the business.”

Further, the costs associated with using an external digital document signing provider have been dramatically slashed.

“It has been a good move for the business,” said Simpson.

To find out more about how Vove Financial implemented the transition to the myprosperity client portal, click here.

Case study

Advice business: Vove Financial

Location: Glenelg, South Australia

Client base: 300+ (clients of accumulators and retirees)

Age of practice: 12 years

 

According to Vove Financial, transitioning a client base to a client portal requires keeping it simple, mastering a few capabilities initially and leading from the front.

Prior to rolling out the myprosperity client portal to its client base, Vove Financial conducted a pilot and tested it with a handful of clients who the business had strong relationships with.

Following this, the firm rolled it out more broadly at annual review time, which provided a methodical period to implement the change and a way to ‘wet the appetite’ of clients.

“You need to lead from the front and get clients involved and excited,” said Malcolm Simpson, Director and Financial Planner, Vove Financial.

Making the transition happen

The business had previously used Compass and was able to link client’s data to myprosperity, so when they logged in for the first time, some of their details were already pre-populated.

Advisers printed out slides with QR codes, so clients could use their phones in the annual review meeting and sign on.

“We positioned the client portal as visible, with real-time figures, secure information and no more emails,” said Simpson

The client portal conversation added five to ten minutes to each annual review meeting where advisers would quickly demonstrate some of the capabilities of the client portal and then help clients download the app on their phone.

A process was set up after this initial introduction to follow up with clients and engage further. For example, if after five days a client had not logged in, Vove Financial would send a reminder.

To support clients who were less familiar with technology, the business took a proactive approach by guiding them through the client portal, ensuring a smooth transition. Additionally, a champion was appointed to oversee the client portal’s adoption and maintain focus on enhancing the client experience.

Impact on the business

According to Simpson, the introduction of the client portal was announced as an optional change.

“It wasn’t terribly hard,” said Simpson. “The first three months, you do need to focus on it and to have a champion in the office.”

After 12-months, the business will have transitioned 90% of its client base to the myprosperity client portal. It transitioned eight to ten clients per week and received two to three calls a week from clients seeking assistance, which were mostly log in queries.

Vove Financial said in the first 12-months, it committed to focusing on the document signing and statement of financial position capabilities of the client portal with clients. This is the approach myprosperity advises as best practice to streamline the process and not overwhelm clients.

“We’re using it to store document or documents clients can access, for them to sign, statement of position and to show them the reports,” said Hill.

He added: “There is obviously a lot of terrific functionality with myprosperity including rooms and other features. Whether we use them or not in the future we are not quite sure, but we decided to just spend the first 12 months making sure that clients are set up and that we have the ability to send and receive documents securely and that we can have them signed as well.”

To find out more about the client and business benefits that Vove Financial achieved through the adoption of the myprosperity client portal, click here.

myprosperity, in partnership with HUB24, have launched a digital education resource to help financial advisers navigate the cyber landscape and to address the increasing risk of cyber security attacks.

In collaboration with other industry experts, the CyberHUB delivers interactive content including insights, tips and case studies to educate and enhance financial advisers’ knowledge of cyber security and the solutions available to them to help mitigate the risks.

Last financial year, the Australian Cyber Security Centre received more than 36,700 calls to its Cyber Security Hotline, an increase of 12% from the previous year, with the average cost of cybercrime for a small business increasing 8% to $49,600, and $62,800 for a medium business.¹

Over the past 12 months, exposure to cyber security threats has emerged as an increasing risk for licensees and financial advisers due to the large volume of sensitive client data required to build tailored financial plans for their clients, and the reliance on email to exchange this information. As of 31 December 2024, technology research and solutions consultancy Finura Group found 69% of advisers send documents such as Statements of Advice (SOAs) by email.

Given more than 27% of licensees are privately owned and made up of 1-10 advisers, smaller businesses often lack the resources to identify and manage cyber incidents, making them vulnerable to attacks.²

According to HUB24 Executive Group Strategy, Greg Hansen, advice practices are increasingly sharing their experiences and are seeking solutions to address their security concerns.

“Advisers want to be more productive, but with emerging technology comes new risks including cybercrime, which is not only on the rise, but leaves financial professionals significantly exposed given the large amount of personal information they rely upon to provide tailored financial advice.”

The HUB24 Group is investing in technology solutions to enable financial professionals to leverage technology to enhance productivity and enable accessible advice for more Australians.

Client portals such as myprosperity play a critical role in strengthening cyber resilience in advice practices and empower advisers to enhance client engagement and drive business efficiencies.

“Most advisers and licensees understand it is not a case of if a cyber incident occurs, but when, and this is motivating them to find a solution and integrate it efficiently into their businesses,” said Tracy Williams, General Manager, myprosperity.

Once advisers have adopted an effective client portal solution, advisers and their clients experience the broader benefits a client portal can provide beyond facilitating trust and security to include better client service and collaboration with other financial professionals.

“Advisers are increasingly recognising the range of benefits client portals can provide their clients as well as their capability to strengthen value propositions,” said Williams. “It comes at an important time in the advice industry’s evolution where trust, security and service, are top of mind for clients.”

To discover all the great information that the CyberHUB has on offer visit hub24.com.au/cyberhub.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

¹ Australian Signals Directorate Annual Cyber Threat Report 2023-2024

² Q4 2024 Adviser Musical Chairs Report Adviser Ratings –https://pro.adviserratings.com.au/docs/Musical_Chairs_Report_2024_Q4.pdf

Case study

Advice business: Prime Advisory

Location: Sydney, NSW

Client base: 1000+ clients 

Age of practice: 20 years+

 

Selecting a client portal and transitioning clients across is not hard if you plan, communicate, reinforce and commit.

Prime Advisory’s transition to a client portal was prompted by demand from clients for a safer way to transfer documents, and its licensee’s desire to see less information shared over email.

However, the business understood that the wider benefits of client portals made them a compelling customer solution.

“Data security, all documents in the one place, better client experience, streamlined way of doing business – it’s a good story for clients,” said Angus Rodgers, Director Prime Advisory.

 

 Choosing the right client portal

Initially, Prime Advisory tried to build their own client portal using Salesforce, but this proved difficult. Hearing feedback from other business leaders on what they used, Prime Advisory chose myprosperity.

“We wanted to go with something that had great infrastructure, was set up and ready to go,” said Harrison Cockburn, Head of Operations, Prime Advisory.

The fact that myprosperity is owned by HUB24 was another key factor to Prime Advisory.

“We prefer to partner with technology providers that have got a solid track record,” said Rodgers. “We like everything that HUB24 is doing.”

He added: “They are innovative, and we think that myprosperity has transitioned into the right hands and its acquisition compliments their existing offering.”

 

Transitioning clients with a project plan

Prime Advisory has two divisions – Prime Wealth and Prime Accounting – which together services more than 1000 clients and approximately $800 million funds under advice.

Based in Sydney and with a 20-year history, the advice and accounting practices service a broad range of clients, including retirees and pre-retirees which include doctors, lawyers and small businesses.

During a strategy day in July 2024, Prime Advisory made the decision to onboard myprosperity on a three-month transition from October to December 2024 – an approach they had used in other significant operational changes such as migrating to Salesforce and changing modelling software providers.

“We are a dynamic business, open to change and always looking for improvements,” said Rodgers.

In October 2024, Prime Advisory sent an email to all clients notifying them of the change and encouraging them to download the myprosperity app. A client portal page was established on its website to make it easy for clients to log on.

The business also started each annual client review meeting in December 2024 with a conversation about the client portal, reinforcing its benefits and encouraging adoption. This phased approach is recommended best practice by myprosperity, and it paid off, as by January 2025, all clients had downloaded the app, with nearly 400 active users engaging with the portal.

 

Looking ahead

Prime Advisory is optimistic about the range of benefits the online portal will bring to its clients and business.

While still in implementation phase, the transition is a bit of work, but Rodgers said the business can “see the light at the end of the tunnel”.

Ease of use of the client portal has been a big positive for the business as has using the client app. “It’s very user friendly for all clients,” said Rodgers. Although getting clients to create multi-factor authentication requires a bit more effort, it is regarded as essential for cyber security.