myprosperity back in the hunt at Finnies Awards

If there is one thing that the fintech industry loves, it’s a good awards ceremony. Now in its fourth year, the ‘Finnies Awards’ (Fintech Australia) will give fintech startups the opportunity to be recognised for their work and innovation at the end of October 2020, and myprosperity is once again in the running.

Granted the gala event won’t have the same impact as in a packed room at a beautiful hotel venue, but the anticipation is sure to run as high as in previous years. If you don’t follow this industry as closely as I do, there are just over 600 fintechs in Australia chasing fame and fortune in the Australian marketplace. And the Finnies stands out as the equivalent of the AFL Brownlow or NRL Dally M when it comes to individual recognition.

A total of 19 awards will be on offer. These include: FinTech Organisation of the Year, Outstanding FinTech Leader of the Year, Female FinTech Leader of the Year, Emerging FinTech Leader of the Year and Emerging FinTech Organisation of the Year.

I’m very proud to see myprosperity in the limelight and in the running for a third award in a row; a great testament to the awesome work of the team, and particularly our software developers that bring the product to life. For those familiar with myprosperity, we take a Whole of Wealth approach to finance, supported by an extensive suite of features and data processing capabilities, which is different to other providers in the market who have a narrower focus – only on cash flow or budgeting.

The team is committed to continuous innovation of our proprietary technology. This year we have been recognised by the FinTech Australia Board and prestigious panel of judges for reimagining the much maligned and stubborn paper form that remains a survivor in this fast moving tech-enabled advice industry. Let’s face it, no-one likes to fill in forms but somehow this hangover from bygone decades has remained front and centre within the operations of an advice business.

So, myprosperity has released a world-first digital form technology to streamline them. Unlike existing online forms, myprosperity’s digital forms are “smart” and map over 4500 data fields from clients’ names and contact details to every detail relating to household wealth. Our digital forms are automatically filled with live data feeds from the client portal making completing forms easier than ever for clients and advisers. These digital forms can even be digitally signed, creating an end-to-end paperless journey. The best feature is that data entered into one form is immediately pre-filled into any other form, meaning data only ever needs to be entered once. Simply completing a tax return may mean that 80% of a home loan application is already completed!

This, along with the ability to create customised forms for advisors that sign up to use myprosperity has resulted in rapid adoption and an expanding range including wealth reviews, financial “fact finds”, tax checklists and home loans. The client portal and pre-filled digital form combination positions myprosperity to revolutionise not only the wealth management and accounting industries but all areas of personal finance.

If you haven’t checked out this feature you should definitely ask us for a demo or check out our National Training Manager’s training video to see it in action. And we’ll also be sure to keep you posted on how we fair at the Finnies later this month. Regardless of whether we come away with another trophy to proudly display in the reception area of our Hawthorn office, we are just pumped to deliver continuous innovation that helps bring greater practice efficiency and client experience to our partners.

5 things in advisory this week 08.10

Here’s what happened this week:

1. It’s budget week! Treasurer Josh Frydenberg announced a slew of measures to help carry the economy through the Pandemic including tax cuts for around 11 million taxpayers back-dated to July 1 this year. More here.

2. A miss for SME advice? The 2020 budget falls short for the advice sector, that’s what Chris Ridd says in his weekly column which you can read here.

3. Boosting super performance. The government announced a range of reforms to the way fund members engage with their super in this week’s budget. More here.

4. What’s in it for millennials? They’re a generation that is due to inherit a vast sum of wealth from the Baby Boomer generation, so when it comes to monetary policy, it’s important to understand how this generation stands to benefit. The AFR has a rundown on what’s in this year’s budget for millennials, including tax cuts for middle income earners, a boost to the first home buyer scheme, and wage subsidies for young workers. More here.

5. Financial stress climbs. As many as 2.29 million Australians are currently facing financial stress – over eight times more people than pre-COVID times, according to wellbeing program Financial Mindfulness. More here.

2020 Budget falls short for advice

The significance of last night’s Federal Budget for 2020 has been compared to that of the early 1990’s (the last recession Australia had) as well as WW1 and II, such is the massive economic upheaval that the government is attempting to address. There is endless amounts of commentary this morning covering the $50B in tax relief, wage subsidies to get 450,000 young people into jobs, infrastructure spending and even the winding back of the R&D tax incentive crackdown. These are all big measures and targeted the usual suspects…tax, jobs and infrastructure investment.

A less talked about area involves measures to get to the heart of how business owners, and particularly those in the small business, might be able to get their house in order and reshape their businesses. Jobs are important, but post pandemic we need to be getting as much advice as possible to struggling business owners in order for them to survive and even thrive on the other side of this huge economic jolt.

I’m talking here about introducing a scheme whereby small businesses would have access to professional advice to enable businesses owners to manage through the current crisis, adapt to the new environment and aid in their recovery. It’s great that the government will subsidise wages to encourage employment of up to 450,000 young workers. However, for a business owner to take up that offer, they might first want to have a professional adviser run over the books and help establish a sound financial and business plan to give them confidence to take on a new staff member.

The concept of such a fund was tabled to the government early this year in a joint proposal by Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand, CPA Australia, the Institute of Public Accountants, the Institute of Certified Bookkeepers, as well as the ASBFEO and the Council of Small Business Australia. In light of the tough economic conditions, it is widely recognised across these industry bodies that tight cash flow amongst many business owners has made professional advice unaffordable. This has only increased the risk to SMEs at a time when they are in desperate need of good financial advice in order to get through the pandemic. The accounting profession in particular has been the very industry overseeing the delivery of the government’s jobkeeper stimulus measure, so it stands to reason that the government should consider this approach. Afterall, if the government is prepared to reform insolvency laws to allow certain businesses to continue trading whilst restructuring their affairs, surely it would make sense to complement this proposal with funded advice to ensure the right outcome.

I note that such a scheme was implemented by the NZ government back in April this year when the worst of the economic impact was being felt at the very beginning of the Covid pandemic. The Ardern government allocated an initial $25m to enable businesses to access expert advice and support in areas such as HR, health and wellbeing, business continuity, cashflow and finance management, strategy and digital capability. Business owners were able to access up to $5000 (excl GST) per business from the COVID-19 Business Advisory Fund. It obviously worked because only a few months later in July, the NZ government announced a $40m top up of the advice fund. There is also precedent for such a program in Australia, with Tasmania’s Business Continuity Grant program providing up to $750 for businesses in that State to access specialist accounting, legal and business planning advice.

As we look to come out of this pandemic and do so with as many SMEs intact as possible, I think it makes sense for the government to consider such a scheme and look to the advice industry to do what it does best.

5 things in advisory this week 01.10

Here’s what happened this week:

1. Early super applications slow – The latest APRA figures show super funds had made $294 million worth of early release payments to 40,000 members in the week to 20 September. Over that week, super funds had received 38,000 applications, of which 23,000 were initial applications and 15,000 were repeat applications. The value of payments made since the inception of the early release scheme now totals $33.5 billion, with 4.4 million total payments made, of which 1.2 million were repeat applications and 3.2 million were initial applications. More here.

2. Regulatory and structural changes to advisory continue to weigh on many – the mental toll is climbing especially as many report feeling frustrated at being misunderstood and ignored as regulatory change continues at pace. More here.

3. Tricks for saving money when times are tough – set up automatic bank transfers to keep your spending and saving on track, don’t run through your savings if you lose your job or hit on hard times. Pivot quickly to reduce your expenses so you preserve your financial security. More here.

4. A better user experience – You will notice some changes when you log into the myprosperity Advisor Portal today, starting with Client Goals and To-Dos. A more streamlined design makes the interaction simpler and more intuitive. Other improvements include the ability to sign existing documents that have already been loaded in the platform, and an enhanced document flow in the Documents section. More here.

5. World Financial Planning day is coming up on October 7 – this year’s theme is: Live Your Today. Plan Your Tomorrow. The day promotes consumer awareness and understanding of financial planning topics including combating financial stress, budgeting, and how to seek the guidance of a professional. More here.

Leading user experience with human centred design

We know, based on feedback from our advisor community, that updates and tips on how to make the most of our product are always appreciated, so this post is to inform you of all the great work going on behind the scenes to enhance the user experience of the myprosperity platform. This week, I sat down with Elice Pace, Senior User Experience Designer to talk about the product. Most of you will never have met Elise, who is part of the talented product team working on the continuous improvement of the platform. Originally from Alabama in the US (yes, we will travel far and wide to find the best talent) Elise has been with myprosperity since the start of 2020.

Being based in Melbourne, she has unfortunately spent most of her time in lockdown since starting with the business but that has not curbed her passion and enthusiasm for tackling the very important work of improving the user experience of our product. Elise has been working on a project to undertake a face-lift of the Advisor Portal. Following a major exercise to drastically improve the client experience in the Wealth Portal, both desktop and mobile, we’ve identified the aspects that need attention and many of these stem from lack of consistency and usability across various features.

Elise spoke about “human-centred design”, which is a relatively new concept in software development, that takes user experience to a whole new level. According to Elise, this concept involves designing a product’s user journey with the human (user) at the very centre of it, so that you are always considering their feedback to inform the design and subsequent testing at every stage of the build. Ultimately making it easier, and less of a cognitive stress for the user to navigate the platform and complete the tasks they came to do. Over recent months, Elise has been heavily engaged in research and user testing with existing users and those that have never used the product before. In this way, she has been able to develop a clear and broad understanding of the barriers and pain points for anyone who uses the product, to then redesign aspects of the interface that will resolve these.

It starts with ensuring that all screens and functions within the Advisor Portal have a consistent look and feel. “Creating designs that are consistent is critical, so that our partners know where they need to go to perform tasks and be intuitive. We are focused on features that users will use and not just something that looks right but something that makes sense and works”.

To that effect, you will notice some changes when you log into the Advisor Portal today, starting with Client Goals and To-Dos. A more streamlined design makes the interaction simpler and more intuitive. Other improvements include the ability to sign existing documents that have already been loaded in the platform, and an enhanced document flow in the Documents section.

According to Elise, this is just the start. The roadmap for simplifying and developing greater consistency across the Advisor Portal extends through to Christmas, so you can expect to see uplifts in the usability and design across all features.

We also touched on our latest, and soon to be launched feature, “Rooms”, which has been spoken about over the last few What’s New at myprosperity webinars. Many partners have already had the feature turned on, and the feedback has been awesome, so we are very excited about its launch in November. According to Elise, “Rooms allows an adviser to engage with clients and other financial professionals in real time. You can invite other people into a Room to get work done. We’ve created a space where that can all happen in one area”. More on that over the coming weeks.

As we continue on our quest to lead innovation in client portal technology, it is great to know that we have amazing and talented people like Elise doing the hard yards of cycling back over previously built features to continually improve them, and implement design with user experience at the centre of it.

Watch the full interview below.

 

5 things in advisory this week 24.09

Here’s what happened this week:

1. This accountant pivoted his career at 40 to become a financial planner. “Career changers over 40 already have business and life experience; a few grey hairs can help with perceived credibility, as well,” says Ryan Sullivan, managing director of Applied Insights at Hartford Funds. In fact, “some firms actively seek out career changers who have proven successful in other industries.”

2. Financial planners agree on the biggest threat to a young investor: a ‘false sense of confidence’. More here.

3. What’s holding you back? In a time when advisors have more choice of how and where to build their businesses than ever before, many find themselves “held hostage” by beliefs that could be limiting their true potential. More here.

4. NAB and Westpac predict October RBA rate cut. More here.

5. A massive generational wealth transfer is about to happen but are millennials ready? A staggering $3.5 trillion is likely to be transferred to a younger generation in Australia over the next 20 years. “A key issue for the Millennial generation is where they will get their advice from and who they can trust. The reputations of many of the organisations that supported their grandparents have been severely tarnished.” More here.