FPA Congress Insights #1 – Transcript

Fraser Jack
Welcome, and thank you to this our very first episode of a rather unique podcast series that we’re putting together as live from the Financial Planning Association Congress, recorded in Sydney 30th birthday this year 30th birthday, and we are celebrating old that you absolutely. So we’re going to be bringing you a whole lot of people from in and around the conference from speakers and guests and people who have something to add to the community. Welcome, Danni. I’m here with Danni.

Danni Visser
Thanks, Fraser. Look, this is really exciting. XY is all around sharing and learning and putting people together so that more ideas, make advice. Great. And today’s Congress that goes over two days is all about that as well. So it’s great that we can take these ideas and make them available to people that couldn’t actually attend the Congress. And Congress actually started before today. Fraser. So our first guest joining us at the very first Fireside Chat is Adam Crabbe. So Adam, you got in early because there was some pre events to the event.

Adam Crabbe
I am an early bird, Danni, I love to sort of get in get involved get engaged at an early stage so kind of excited to be recovered all since

Danni Visser
Adam, what? Who are you tell us who you are?

Adam Crabbe
Well, for those that don’t know, me, insurance nerd guru, risk strategy specialist with Siri. So anything and everything to do with life insurance is kind of my bag.

Danni Visser
I had the privilege of working with the crab as we called him. When I was at Xerox is so great to have you here. Adam. You have attended a bit of a thirst for the FPA yesterday, so it’s to do with the CFP program that the FPA is bringing to market? Can you tell us about what happened? You’re a panelist at that particular day?

Adam Crabbe
Yeah, absolutely. It was a wonderful event, Danni, and it was, as you say, it was an inaugural event for the FDA where they put together a bit of a showcase and a celebration in a way of CFP professionals. So what we did is we sat down put together quite an intensive case study, one in which, you know, I was joined by some amazing, amazing colleagues are Louise Beatty from the aged care step. So some incredible aged care insights, and a couple of practitioners, Catherine Creasy, and chain some chain summer, who really were kind of leading the charge in terms of not just dissecting the case study, but really exploring what other CFP professionals do in their business. What

Danni Visser
was the case study on? Oh my gosh, study, well, what didn’t you study? What was what were the things that came out of the case study

Adam Crabbe
had everything, everything from Family Trust structures, bit of a complex family situation, there were people with no dependents, others that were single parents with dependents a bit, cash strapped. So it really was stretching that sort of advice, knowledge piece into considerations from everything from estate planning, during powers of attorney guardianship, legal guardianship, through to wealth protection strategies. At one particular point, we sort of talk through a situation where someone in the late 50s suddenly had a stroke. What would you do in that situation? Now that you’ve got the complexity of aged care, elder abuse? NDIS really did have everything.

Fraser Jack
capacity and all those sorts of things to consider as No, yeah, has begun. And what tell us about that, that process that you went through that was there obviously moments with who were holy crap?

Adam Crabbe
Look, it’s a good question for either, I think, because one of the things we really wanted to do was give enough time to sort of explore some of these situations in more detail. So we really did look into chunks in a way and spent, you know, 40-45 minutes really going through each of those collaborating, and getting some really strong insights from the attendees just to sort of see how they do things. However,

Danni Visser
I would change things with the same case, what kind of

Adam Crabbe
insight from some of these practitioners really willing to share it? And so it was, can you

Danni Visser
in this look, I know we’re putting him on the spot, and he’s first off this morning, but Elder abuse is a really topical conversation within X, Y. What? What does a planner do if they suspect elder abuse? Like what what came out of that conversation on that front?

Adam Crabbe
Yeah, look, it’s certainly a delicate subject. And I think getting some of those amazing insights from Louise in particular around that situation. I think there’s probably no easy answer for that. It really depends on the situation. It depends on the what is actually happening to that individual at that particular point. But I think part of the messaging does reside in getting better ingrained within that broader family unit as best as you can. Which also makes sense, I think, from an intergenerational advice perspective, because often, the people you’re dealing with today could actually be the future client tomorrow.

Danni Visser
Has Louise experienced that, that situation? Had she sort of gone through a journey of that? No, no. I don’t think I’m so curious about it. Like it’s this sort of conversation that it’s really difficult to find some tangible how to like we’re always here to extract the how do you do some But it’s one of those things that yeah, that people are on the lookout for that is obviously prevalent as an issue there. But it’s

Adam Crabbe
one of the Royal Commission into disability aged care, etc. So it’s certainly front of mind for a lot of people. So

Danni Visser
if anyone’s listening and has some tips, or has experienced that it’d be awesome. If you could get in touch with us the next one and tell us and let us know, because I think there’s a bit of a conversation we could have around elder abuse.

Fraser Jack
Yeah. And I’m curious about your part, because we talked about the ways in in this. Tell us about your part of the presentation and what you were what highlight what are you bringing to the conference? Yeah,

Adam Crabbe
so we were looking at sort of the the middle cohort, so there was an older, mature age, individual, mono for memory was in a mid or late 80s. But the focus on emphasis for me was on this kind of middle cohort, this sort of husband and wife that were considering some of the aged care implications for the elderly parent, but also some of the potential financial disruption of the adult children and the grandchildren. So my sort of emphasis was on that kind of cohort really exploring, what would you do in that situation? There was some finger dependency issues with one of the adult kids, and just talking through what does that look like? You know, if you’re purely just focusing on retirement, planning that cash flow analysis for that individual, if something happens to one of those adult kids, what would that mean? How would that disrupt that family unit, whatever retirement planning is they’re putting into play. So bringing a few kind of ideations into that that mix?

Fraser Jack
And tell us a little bit about the ethical considerations? Because obviously, you you talk, you’re a tech nerd, as well, yeah, you’re an insurance nerd. Tell us a little bit about some of the ethical implications that came out of a case study, and what was the sort of findings around that gray area of

Adam Crabbe
what might be ethical or not, and you hit the nail on the head, it really is such a gray area. So giving that open forum to really discuss what you would do how, as an advisor, you would approach certain situations, because being Gray, there’s no right or wrong, right. And it can be, you know, fairness, honesty in one one area, but it could also require a level of diligence and objectivity to remain sort of ethically minded, moving forward. Bit of a method. Yeah, very much. So lots of communication, lots of questioning, a lot of almost reflection on the situation. So part of I think what we sort of talked about was not wanting to jump straight to solutions mode, getting advisors thinking about what are some of the broader conversations and impacts that you could maybe consider before stepping forward and actually going through? How do we attack this with a strategy or provide a solution? So yeah, it’s good, good fun.

Fraser Jack
So the main highlights from the session for you

Adam Crabbe
look selfishly, the insurance stuff, obviously. But to be honest, I think what I really enjoyed was hearing what some advisors doing in their business and having feedback with some of the other attendees, just hearing them and saying, look, I’ve got some great ideas, great insights from some of our colleagues, practitioners, being able to take them away and implement them in their business was certainly a standout for me. He was

Fraser Jack
gonna ask about the planners in the room next about that conversation. From there going forward. What do you think they took away from that, that having that session, I think

Adam Crabbe
it very much the snippets on how they would attack certain situations, because it was quite a complex one. But equally, some of the ways in which they just simply engaging from a, you know, an entry level new client perspective, the way in which they’re differentiating themselves. And one of the advisors forgive me, I can’t remember her name, but just sort of talk through how they would actually sort of photograph and catalog different things at the retirees are doing and they have kind of the showcase in their practice, which is wonderful. So it’s kind of one of the first things that you see, and it’s almost a bit like an addiction, they want to be part of that. So what can they do in their retirement to be part of that sort of overall process? Yeah, really, really interesting, fascinating stuff.

Danni Visser
Even you’re the insurance nerd, it would be remiss of us not to not to ask what your tips and what you wanted the audience to take out of that session, like what were the nuggets of gold that you handed on yesterday.

Adam Crabbe
For mine, it was definitely wanting to embrace every element that you could possibly look at, while something like insurance is seen very much as a speciality. Not being in a situation where you want to necessarily not dismiss, but really wanting to embrace any area and opportunity that could arise, even if it’s not necessarily your kind of core business. So whether it’s partnering with another CFP, professional or advice provider to attack any area of that client situation, which could be potentially vulnerable if left unaddressed.

Fraser Jack
Fantastic. Adam, thank you so much for coming along and having a fireside chat with us at the Congress in our little podcast bar that we’ve got set up here and early morning too

Danni Visser
Really appreciate it. Thanks for joining us.

Fraser Jack
Thanks. Hello, and welcome back to another edition of our very special podcast brought to you from the Financial Planning Association Conference. I’m joined by Danni Thank you Joining me Danni.

Danni Visser
Thanks Fraser, and we have a special guest joining us. For our second episode, yes, we actually weren’t going to speak to cat. So it’s very nice that she’s turned up. Like you’ll you’ll be scrolling because we heard some fantastic things about what you’re doing in your practice, particularly with your engagement and it’s a very different so you’re actually nominated by Marisa to have a chat with us. So we would love you to tell us a little bit about your business, and then we can dive into what you’re doing. That’s a bit special.

Kathryn Orman
Thank you. Yes, well, I’ve been a plan for 35 years, but I’ve run my own business in Brisbane. It’s called goals and dreams, financial planning, we’ve got a huge postcard board clients send postcards from all over the world. And I’m just really passionate about making a difference in people’s lives. So postcards from all over the world. Yeah. Tell us more about that. When I get overwhelmed with compliance, I go and stand at the postcard board and it helps ground me and refocus me, I help that person get to Paris and I help that person with whatever their goals and dreams are. And yeah, that’s

Fraser Jack
it’s amazing to be on a mission that something isn’t it?

Kathryn Orman
Well, human nature to the clients, when they send a postcard they try and send an unusual one. So it’ll stand out on the postcard boards. So

Danni Visser
what’s the weirdest one you’ve got on the postcard board?

Kathryn Orman
The weirdest one is a meat pie. Already. map of Australia in tomato sauce from one of my clients who said he didn’t really have any, anything on his wish list. And then came the biggest traveler that I’ve ever had. So yeah, fantastic. Yeah.

Fraser Jack
Wonderful. It was the will tell him tell us about where in the world are all these postcards from? Oh,

Kathryn Orman
everywhere. All sorts of countries, you know, just all over the world. In in lockdown one of my clients. So I’m Brisbane North she lives at Bribie, which is about

Danni Visser
I know Bing. Well, I used to do holidays abroad. Beautiful.

Kathryn Orman
She sent me a postcard from Bing. She said I knew you’d be missing postcards in in COVID. Because I was traveling. So

Fraser Jack
yeah, that does it. Tell us a little bit about the book. You’ve written a book and want to know all about this. I’m actually

Kathryn Orman
in the process of writing an actual book called attitude, abundance and action. But this one is more a booklet. I was in locked down and I had some thought capacity. So I went, Oh my God, I’ve got all these amazing clients have been with me for 1015 20 years. And travel the world had an amazing retirement. But when they first came to me they had all the fears and I have enough money and what will retirement look like? So I thought when I asked a series of questions to all those clients, and they all were very lovely and participated set amazing photos in and then we put it into this booklet. And and now I give it to my new clients as they’re coming through, you know, as what

Danni Visser
they can achieve. If fantastic to make it real.

Fraser Jack
I think this is amazing opportunity. Like as this is telling your your new clients that you’ve got a whole lot of very happy existing clients.

Kathryn Orman
Yes. And we’ve got very much a community of of my clients. They mix with each other. We have a big Christmas party, we have wineries

Danni Visser
do you go to I’ve heard these wineries. I know it’s

Kathryn Orman
it’s a really lovely feeling to know that you have made a difference to these people’s lives. And we had a lovely Thank you lunch for the people who participated and have had a goodie bag with the copy of the board put in a bottle of champagne and so fantastic. There is another layer to this story, which is quite heartfelt. One of my clients had a battle with pancreatic cancer a couple of years ago got through it, which is unusual. And then it came back somewhere else which often happens. And his wife rang me we had their review due on the 16th of August. And about 10 days before that. She said you’ve got to kind of say goodbye. So we go to say goodbye. But it was a very happy sort of celebration of life. Yeah. And that his son was there with all family members. And I said okay, if we tried to have a beer night and his wife said no capital have a champagne. So 10 minutes before I was about to leave. We got an email to say the books had arrived. I delivered the very first one that he participated in with photos of he and his wife on the Great Wall of China having a picnic where you’re not supposed to have picnics and Siberian Railway or all these amazing things. So that was quite a I see how that happened. 16th of August came along and he was still with us. So I went and did the review. And because so many people were coming to say goodbye. He said, You have no idea how many people have seen this book, would you autograph it for His funeral was last Friday. So he lasted another three months.

Danni Visser
So you made a really huge difference.

Kathryn Orman
Absolutely. Now you’re getting all

Fraser Jack
We’re all getting a bit teary. And if you’re driving in a car, while you’re watching this, I hope you’re not getting teary.

Kathryn Orman
It just shows what a difference we make to people’s lives. And if we can get out to the world. You know, it’s not just numbers, and it’s the meaning

Danni Visser
behind the money.

Fraser Jack
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It’s a great way of honoring somebody’s achievement, isn’t it in their, in their retirement, the achievement of doing the things you know, making the sacrifices, getting saving the money, they need to invest in the money and then be able to actually spend it and showcase that.

Kathryn Orman
And I think, you know, from the very first meeting, I write a homework list for my clients and all the usual things, your your budget, and have you done your wills and adjourn habit, Tony, the most important things what something on wish list? And then what do we have to do financially to help you achieve those things? So I think that’s really important.

Danni Visser
I’m really interested in that because I’ve, you know, it is very hard. And it doesn’t surprise me that you say some people don’t have a wish list. Like it’s really hard to articulate and find those things that you shouldn’t, you should say, like, everyone brings things to the table. I think that they say that sound amazing. But how, how have you refined your process to get to what really matters to someone over the years? Like, has that evolved for you?

Kathryn Orman
Yes, it’s I get husbands and wives to write separate wish lists because often he’ll the granddaddy, you know, I didn’t know if she wanted to go heli skiing off the slopes of New Zealand. And I didn’t know he wanted to do this. Because I really encourage people to say, what are the things that you’ve said one day, I’d like to, you know, stop putting it off. You know, we’re all about, you know, achieving your goals and dreams and enjoying the journey. And just quickly, I’ve got some clients, some that started with me 15 years ago came from Western Australia, on their wish they put in retirement go to New Zealand. So Brisbane, New Zealand’s not very far but Perth to New Zealand is. So we set things up for the meaning within 18 months, they sent me a postcard from New Zealand and put on it thank you for giving us permission. Wow. Now they just retired officially last year, they’ve been to Canada, I’ve been to Europe, they’ve traveled all over the world. So it’s, it’s just reminding people to stop putting life off and keep enjoying, because we all know, death happens. Divorce happens ill health. You know, just just, this is what life’s all about. So then what do we have to do financially to help YouTube?

Danni Visser
You always been into the goals and dreams company like that? Was that naturally? Your tilt? So you’ve always seemed you’ve been in advice for a few years? Yes. That’s always been what you’ve done? Or is it at a transition point where you went from the financial stuff to really honing in your is a

Kathryn Orman
my first conference was myself and 28 men. And I’m tall. So I already stood out anyway. But I realized then the element that was different. And it was not just about my numbers it’s about about life and making a difference.

Fraser Jack
Yeah, the really the emotional tools on the whole the value that planners bring to, to the cause. Yes, yeah. Fantastic. And thank you so much for coming and telling us about your story today that you were involved in a session yesterday as well. Tell us a little bit about that.

Kathryn Orman
Yes, what was the the inaugural CFP gathering and they had a case study and an all different aspects of it. But I think it was really we all did little workshops and hearing ideas from everyone around the table. And yeah, that was that was invaluable because everyone brings different elements and

Fraser Jack
and what’s it like for you to be able to come to a conference in person? Absolutely.

Danni Visser
Three years gap isn’t the last one.

Kathryn Orman
Well, humans we all need that human contact and be able to give somebody a hug. Just, you know, a

Danni Visser
bottle of champagne

Kathryn Orman
bottle of champagne or share a bottle of champagne. Yeah, yeah.

Fraser Jack
Sounds like a great theme. Thank you so much for coming and chatting with us today. Really appreciate it.

Danni Visser
Thank you. Thanks.

Fraser Jack
And we’re off in the break at

Danni Visser
this thing people between muffins

Fraser Jack
people in left right and center. A lot of the presenters from the Congress are turning up to the podcast booth. And we are getting these gyms, those biocide chats to make

Danni Visser
sure we can spread all of the session gold broader than the people that could make it or maybe you couldn’t get to a session. So this is a spot to highlight reel

Fraser Jack
Real exactly right. Welcome, Peter. Tell us a little bit about First let’s start with you tell it tell us a bit about you and your and your business and how you work with advice. Yeah.

Peter Worn
So I’m a joint Managing Director at FINRA, I work with a free talent, a bunch of people, there’s nine of us now and the company. We work predominantly with independent financial advisors, technology companies and product manufacturers to more recent times, around better execution, when it comes to device technology projects. feticide this industry’s got a lot of choice with tech. But usually where things go off the rails is on the people execution side of things more than the tech itself. That’s where we play a role. I

Fraser Jack
also play in that space around the combination of humans versus technology and how they all play together or don’t play together product predominantly. Tell us a little bit about your session that you’re going to be involved with today. It’s got a pretty, pretty pretty Yeah, well,

Danni Visser
the session is, is tech, the savior of advice.

Peter Worn
So an ambitious title. I exist in many respects, I think advice could be the savior of tech in this space. If we look at you know, maybe where technology companies have potentially got it wrong, historically is they haven’t had enough of an understanding of advice. And one thing I’m really delighted to see at the FPA in the last couple of years, the last couple of conferences has been this growth of the technology companies participating actively in the tech space that the tech Alley is pretty popular now. And I see that, you know, the major players in our ecosystem. So I don’t think one is going to save the other I think they need to work together to save each other,

Fraser Jack
you’re working together as the key there. Absolutely. And so with the session today, because we haven’t had it yet, we can talk about the highlights of yours so much, or we can highlight what’s gonna make the whole let’s

Peter Worn
look, I think we’ve got a few diverse opinions here from Cory Russell, who’s a, you know, obviously well known advisor, he’s going to be talking he’s, he’s probably what I would call it tech explorer in our industry. And some of that’s definitely open to try new things. I hope he probably pushes the room a little bit to not be tech, Lego Legos, I think advisors do sometimes risk averse, when it comes to making technology decisions or things that are out of their comfort zone. And just hopefully, you know, opening up the conversation to for advisors to push themselves a bit further. I think some of the other panelists are representing the technology companies. So I’ll probably do my best a little bit to get them approved to sit and understand why this skin What are they doing, and then they’re the most well capitalized of all of us to support advice moving forward. And, and I hope what I’d like to see is, you know, as this industry has shrunk to a large extent that we need to collaborate a lot more and compete less for the providers, and particularly the tech companies as well. So that’s probably something I chat about, ya know,

Fraser Jack
you mentioned the word layout. It’s an interesting one, because I think a lot of advisor planners, to see themselves as laggards and a little bit scared to take that take the plunge. And so there’s a bit of a nervousness around the competence and the competence around using technology. Yeah,

Peter Worn
I think, look once bitten, twice shy, perhaps there’s an expression there. And the evidence is quite clear. I mean, most advisors have changed licensee a few times very few have changed technology, in our experience. So part of that, you know, we think companies like our plate play a role to educate advisors, get comfortable with the change management. And I think the other challenge for advisors in future will be recruiting people into their practices who have these skill sets who understand technology. And I think this is where paraplanners client service managers, general managers play an enormous role in energy moving forward, and hopefully take some of those technology decisions off the advisors so they can just focus on what I do just

Danni Visser
do there’s a statement that I’m going to steal from Peter diamond Hades, who’s a bit of a tech nerd, and she runs our tech podcast at x y. Advice tech podcast. don’t automate awful is something that she has once said, that really resonated with me, what are your couple of tips to make sure that people don’t automate all four then embed or four? Because they don’t have the change management process mapped out? Can you give us the couple of things that you see that you got, ah, you should have avoided that.

Peter Worn
Yeah, I think texts a bit like your diet crappy and crap out. So I would say I’ve staggered by the amount of businesses that we come across, who have embarked on quite ambitious technology projects without actually cleaning up their backyard with data. Most businesses probably at this conference have done some sort of m&a at some point in their time. And they’re often really good at getting out to see the clients and getting the staff together, but not so good at actually cleaning up their databases, you know, filtering, you know, really getting a good working order. So, I would say, if you’re going to do anything, tidy up your data before you even think about any ambitious technology products will be my first one

Fraser Jack
that involves a bit of a you know, investment in time and effort and money and resources and the right humans to do the job. Did you find that it’s a bit of a problem for advice firms that that don’t have the resources? Yeah, it’s the

Peter Worn
biggest one. I mean, I think this is why you’re seeing more, potentially more collaboration between IFA He’s looking to merge together, just because they just don’t have those resources in house that they need. I know how busy advice businesses are, you know, just day to day doing the Bau. So just having the bandwidth for a change project is a real challenge. But obviously, you know, it’s sort of hope that in future as tech improves, and maybe if we get some good results with the regulatory environment, that some of that pressure will come off and hopefully free things up. So visors can can serve more clients and recruit some people into their business that can actually drive some of this change. Because, look, the tech, one thing I would say is that no software in history is ever, at least in our space, we don’t have really AI driven systems in our space. And software doesn’t think for itself, it does exactly what it’s supposed to do. It’s the humans that don’t. So I would argue that it’s the people side of it that needs the biggest amount of change. And you know, this phrase, if you work in cyber, you know, it’s most cyber incidents are caused because of human human issues rather than software issues. So I think it’s something that needs to be on the very much on the roadmap for advice seems to have a deliberate tax strategy and appoint key people in their business that are in that for them.

Danni Visser
There’s a bit of a tech race on like, it’s it’s heating up in terms of the solutions providers. What would your advice be to them? You’ve spent a fair bit of time you’ve within advice, businesses, what what are the things that they really need to focus on to be one of the top choices? Yeah,

Peter Worn
yeah, it’s, I think we’re seeing a bit of a byproduct of the broader economy where we had this rush of capital into technology ventures in the last 10 years, really. And that’s sort of quieten down a little bit. So that’s probably why we’re seeing so much tech emerging. I think the tech providers, my encouragement would be to try to own your space, be the very best at what you do, and resist the urge to creep too far beyond that, I know it’s tempting. But there are just certain categories that require a certain skill set, I’ll use pipe bottles, a great example. And fact finding where that is, that is a human design process to build software, through the touches the end customer, the end client have an advisor, where if you’re building back office operations, software, that’s a really different set of skills. So I would say pick him up, you read the front office dealing between the advisor and the client relationship, or you’re in the back office as a software developer, and try not to cross his too much.

Fraser Jack
Now, I always think about when you’re using technology, it’s great to have a tool. How often would people use the tool to this extent, as an as an often, you know, things do so many things, and all of a sudden, you’re using 20 30% of the actual end end? You know, what, what could be used?

Peter Worn
Yeah, I think I mean, sort of evident. Your question. I think the reality is, most people don’t. So we’re constantly amazed even by the lack of usage of things that become native in Microsoft 365, for example, people using other solutions that Microsoft already does for them out of the box. A lot of work we do. Ironically, people think we add tech to practices quite often we strip stuff out to simplify. So I think exploring the depths of the capability have already got should always be a starting point before you look to change anything. And I think there’s been a bit of a maybe certain businesses, we see a temptation to throw tech at the problem, rather than looking at what the real problem is. And that maybe that’s why we’re seeing those things. You new things go in which you’re

Fraser Jack
really looking for the quick fix rather than actually yeah, getting getting it in researching. Yep. Now no conversation with technology would be completed. We didn’t talk about the future. Where do you where do you see all this heading for advice, professional? Look, I

Peter Worn
looked at other markets, we do a lot of work in the UK in the US, I would expect to see where our markets going through a transition from a very much a bank led, institutional led advice industry to an iPhone industry. And that’s awesome. sighs I’m concerned. I’ve been these for 20 years, I started as an advisor. And I was always staggered by the lack of iPhones. So I’m just so encouraged to see what’s happening. I do believe that, you know, we will see a proliferation of new solutions more tailored for the iPhone market that we don’t have today. And what I’m really hoping to see is better collaboration between platform providers and technology companies and the other software vendors to actually work collaboratively integrate really well together and maybe resist the urge to put up the the data moats, let’s call them to protect their own patch. I think that sector grows more vibrantly, I think ifas will have all the power and future. And hopefully that voice will drive that integration discussion as it does in other markets like the US. Yep,

Danni Visser
you’ve got a session to get to soon you’ve got

Fraser Jack
absolutely. Like we stole the gold session, which is amazing. No problem. Thank you so much for coming on and chatting with us today. Really appreciate it. Thank you. Thanks for joining us. Again, we are coming to you from the Financial Planning Association Conference in Sydney. I’m joined by Danny, thank you for joining. We’re here again wonderful to have a lovely new guest host Seeing beautiful new guests that’s going to talk about their session today. Welcome. Thank you.

Kathryn Creasy
Thank you very much for having me.

Danni Visser
Now Kara said it’s the the Kathryn or Kat. So that’s you got to stick to those. So you’ve got a really interesting session and we’ll get to that shortly. Kathryn, we’d love to first just know about your journey, how you became an advisor, what your business looks like, I did some stalking. I’m going to call it earlier around and you have a lot of, yeah, you’ve got some great credentials, especially in women advice would be great to hear what your journey has been very quickly, and then how you got to speak at the FPA and what that session is about?

Kathryn Creasy
Sure. So I did a degree in marketing and worked in marketing for three years and really loved it until I didn’t. And then because when I graduated, which was, gosh, what 2002 It’s really hard to get a job in marketing. When I decided I didn’t love it anymore. I thought, How am I going to get another job. And a family friend worked in stock broking, and he had been badgering me to come and work with him for ages. And so I thought, You know what, I’m gonna give it a crack. And so 2003 I started in stock broking. Loved it. So much fun. So much fun for the brokers not so much fun for the clients. So I was there through the GFC saw a lot of wealth destruction, and sort of decided, this is not my career, I really enjoy the finance side of things. But I don’t think I can be a stockbroker. And then started looking around a friend introduced me to Capital Partners. And so I thought financial planning massively dirty word in stock broking, but let’s give it a crack. And for three months, I hated it. And then I loved it. And I’ve been very happy for eight years ever since. Fantastic.

Danni Visser
And your session today is ethically releasing a client work. That’s a really interesting conversation. And it’s about when do you know that the relationship probably needs to come to an end. And if you could give us some insight into how you got? Yeah, how you got involved in such a topic, as has this been an experience that’s come up for you in your business. And

Kathryn Creasy
it has, it definitely has, and we’ll talk a little bit about some of those examples. It’s certainly not something that happens really often. But you know, we go through a lot with our clients. And it’s really important to have a really good and engaged relationship with them. And sometimes things just come up that mean that you can’t, you can’t efficiently and actively service them anymore. And we’ve sort of narrowed that down to three little categories, which is your chaotic client who just, you know, doesn’t get back to you, they don’t, they don’t respond when you need things, they say they’re going to come to a meeting and they don’t show up. And you just get to a point where you know, you can’t efficiently service them anymore. There’s also people who just don’t take your advice. And I’ve had that experience with a client who I loved. But really, he was just going rogue and you get to a point where you think they’re doing things that are destructive for their wealth, and can you actively be their advisor anymore. And then the last sort of client that we’ll talk about is when it comes a point where they don’t really have enough going on to justify your fee anymore. And so how do you actually make sure that you have the right conversation with them? And that you leave them in a good position? You don’t just say, sorry? We’re not taking your money anymore. See you later. Yeah.

Danni Visser
And what would be your your Can you kind of that’s a pretty multifaceted, probably approach but what what would you say are the things that you’ve embedded into that process of releasing that client in an ethical way.

Kathryn Creasy
So I guess it depends on on sort of who it is, but there is so much stuff that you can do to make sure that they’re left in a good position. And it might be, you know, if they’re going to another advisor, it might be the really seamless handover of any advice documents, or anything that the other advisor requires. But it’s also if they’re going to go it alone, then make sure they’ve got the right support around them. So for example, running a self managed Superfund, make sure they don’t just have an A, well try and set them up with an accountant who’s not just going to do the compliance work and not help them with some of the more strategic stuff. So make sure that they’re with other advisors who can really engage with what they need. And then for a client that you think is probably no longer going to be advised anymore is do you need to write them one last statement of advice, which is kind of almost the set and forget type of plan. So what are the things that you need to do to just make sure that that relationship ends really well?

Fraser Jack
Yeah, I’ll ask this question. Because it’s my assumption is that a lot of clients would go oh, look, I’m really sorry. I was when you had that. When you breach that conversation. You say, look, you’ve just a bit too chaotic for us or you’re not following our advice. And so we need more structure. dreaded view that they go on. And oh, please give me a second chances that that happens.

Kathryn Creasy
Yeah, for sure stuff like that does happen. And I think it’s about really honest conversations and holding each other both to account. So we’ve certainly had the scenario whereby someone is a bit chaotic. And when you sit down and have a discussion with them, it’s because the relationships not working for them, or it’s not quite what they wanted, or maybe thought it would be. And then it’s just a meeting of minds. And you both agree that this is not the way forward. But there has been times yes, when you sort of have to have an honest conversation with a client and say, not getting back to me, we’re meaning to do this, that and the other end if, if you sort of, you know, wouldn’t use these words, but if you can’t come to the party, then do you really do you really want to be paying me, and sometimes, you know, they’re gonna pull up their socks and go, you know, what, I am paying you a lot of money, and I do want to have a good relationship. And so I’m gonna make it a priority to get back to you. Yeah, I’m also

Fraser Jack
thinking that there might be a fear out there amongst advisors going, you they don’t want the bad review, or the rejection that like somebody feels like they’re being rejected. So that that’s they lash out at the advice and the firm and the brand. Oh, absolutely.

Kathryn Creasy
And that’s why it’s so important to leave every interaction with like, a positive. taste in your mouth is not the right thing. But you know, for it to be a positive ending of the relationship, because just because things didn’t work out with you in that person, it doesn’t mean that you can’t help their friend or someone else. And we do get referrals. And you know, not to, not to, more often than you would think, from people who have been clients in the past. And they’re not anymore, because they don’t need us for whatever reason, but they say, You know what, if you need someone, these are the people that you need to speak to. So it’s so important, you just don’t know what’s around the corner, you don’t know, you just want to make sure always that you’re leaving a positive influence on people’s lives.

Danni Visser
Catherine, there’s a really question that always comes up next why, and it taps into what you’re speaking about here is around when a partnership is no longer a partnership, and there’s a divorce that occurs. That’s quite a critical relationship point. Yeah. What do you do in that scenario? Like, which partner do you decide to manage? And how do you let the partner that you have, you know, opted out of how do you how do you how do you kind of extract yourself from that relationship? Because we get asked that question all the time. Yeah.

Kathryn Creasy
So that that is absolutely something we’ve talked so much about, particularly with the introduction of the code of ethics. So actually, I work a lot with divorce women, that’s sort of the specialty area that I have. But mostly they come to us when the relationships already broken down. Thankfully, we haven’t had too many clients divorce. But what we’ve come to in our business is often at the start, because they’ve been having conversations about money, it does start off very amicably. And so when someone comes to us, if they come to us together and say we’re splitting up, then we can be quite clear that we can continue to do like to manage the assets that we’re managing, for example, as long as you both agree to everything, and we will not have a conversation without another the other in the room. So you always have to come to meetings together, all communication is going to be CC to both of you. And we’ve got a list of almost terms and conditions if they want us to continue with both of them, because often that’s what they asked for. And if they’re happy to sign off on that, then we will continue. And generally speaking, it’s not any strategic stuff. It’s more just managing the status quo until they’ve made a decision. But we’re also very clear, if you if you don’t want that, that’s absolutely fine, let us know. And we can find one or both of you another advisor. And we sort of put the ball in their court to make that decision. And so far, it’s been it’s not been a difficult one people have come to us and sort of being clear about it’s going to be this person that retains you. I look, I don’t imagine that’s always the case. So we just try to be as honest and open with the couple as possible to be really clear about what we can do and what we can’t do. And then if that’s what they’re happy to sign up for. It’s also very clear, as soon as they’re not happy to sign up for that, let us know, because then we will make a move.

Fraser Jack
Yeah, I’m really glad to hear that you’ve got these processes in place to be able to, to open yourself up to these conversations. I think it’s going to happen a lot more and more in the future. And as as advisors realize what their obligations are law and more and more and even when there’s an uplift in, you know, fees that are appropriate for that client that I think that conversation is going to be prevalent within those firms.

Kathryn Creasy
Yes, absolutely.

Danni Visser
I have another question. Actually, as a follow on to that question given you said divorced women are your specialty. What is the things that you do amongst all the I guess moving parts that you’ve got to help put into a little bit more of a structured process map for someone going through a divorce? What are the things that you think your clients find? Hapa valuable, and what are the things that you, you know, your journey into this specialty, and now you’re going you know what out of all these things you could do for a person in that particular situation, what adds the most value or what’s most treasured at that point.

Kathryn Creasy
So I tend to find that, I will get referred women who have not being the financial decision maker, so it’s them taking the reins, for the first time, we sort of call it from crisis to confidence. And so what where we add value is, you would be so surprised about the people who might have really large chunky sums of money in the bank, who will call me and say, I don’t know if I can afford to get someone to clean the pool. And I don’t know how to do it myself. So what we give them is somewhat the permission, but perhaps the information that they can spend money and still be okay. And the things that they need to do to make sure that that money will last them throughout, you know, the rest of their life, which might be 40 or 50 years. Whenever, when women first come in to me, I often find they don’t know about the moving parts, they don’t understand that there’s a family trust, they don’t want superannuation, because they can’t access it. And what I always say to them is, however you’re feeling now, I can almost guarantee in three years, you’re going to understand this, you’re going to be confident, and you’re going to be coming in and telling me what you want. And it always happens. It’s just the confidence that you like, the best part for me seeing that confidence grow.

Fraser Jack
Or I think that’s a really amazing takeaway to set that ambition up in their minds is something that they will achieve. And then they just head towards that. I really love that idea. Give them some direction.

Kathryn Creasy
Yeah, it’s the best. Honestly, it’s the light. That’s why we do what we do. Right. It’s the best.

Fraser Jack
Yeah. Thank you so much for coming and chatting with us fireside chat today. We know you got a busy schedule today. So really appreciate your time.

Kathryn Creasy
Thank you so much.

Fraser Jack
Welcome back. Thank you for joining us again. We are coming to you from the financial planning Congress in Sydney. And we have got another special guest lined up for a little while to get here. Absolutely for a fireside chat. Welcome. Welcome very much to the podcast.

Charmaine Lamprecht
Thank you. Welcome. Glad to be here.

Danni Visser
Yeah. Thanks for joining us, Charmaine, we would love to start by knowing who you are, how your business is and what you’re actually going to be talking about at the Congress.

Charmaine Lamprecht
Sure. So Capital Partners, private worlds, so from her, so we have traveled a little way. And there is such a thing is Perth jetlag, I can promise. So we’re practice of around 14 staff members there. We’re an independent practice. And we’ve been running for about 20 years now. So very long standing practice. I’ve been there for about 10 years. And my role is the Chief Operating Officer. So really about strategy, integration strategy and making sure the team have everything they need to deliver really amazing work for our clients.

Fraser Jack
Well, and that hasn’t been an easy job over the last last couple of years for chief operating officers with managing lots of humans in locations. Absolutely, yes. Lots of challenges. Now, we are here to talk today about what some of the stuff that you were talking about the Congress. And when we talk about challenges, that’s certainly been the theme. So tell us a little bit about what you’re talking about.

Charmaine Lamprecht
Sure. So a big session on cybersecurity. So back in 2018, we were the unfortunate victims of fraudulent event. And it was probably the best worst thing that could ever happen to us. But we learned a lot from it. And today, I’m really here to share some of those learnings and help other practices make sure they can avoid some of the pitfalls that we fell into at that point in time,

Fraser Jack
but does it now I do know a little bit out of the session because I have been privy to it. Essentially, your story is broken up into three parts of sort of before the attack happened. And then obviously during the attack that took place, and then what you’ve done afterwards. So let’s let’s probably start with that first part, tell us a little bit about the practice was tracking long before before the breach.

Charmaine Lamprecht
So we’re, I would think a very organized practice. And technology was very top of mind for us. What we weren’t thinking about was specifically cybersecurity. So at that point in time, we’ve done a recent upgrade of all of our technology, and we were moving to a Cloud infrastructure. So we had on premise, and we were moving to cloud. And as part of that we moved all of our software into the cloud. What we weren’t thinking about at the time was the risks that come with moving to a Cloud migration and what that actually does to your business. We were so focused on the technology and moving there and upgrading that we weren’t thinking about the back end.

Fraser Jack
Yeah. Now I described this, as you know, we’ve all had that shiny syndrome scenario. But I described this a little bit around the concept of technology, we focus on working really well and easily and simply and all those sort of things. Whereas when he told me via cybersecurity, how are you going? How do we stop things working so easily?

Charmaine Lamprecht
Yes. And also how do you be operationally efficient and secure because you can be incredibly secure, but you also can operate a business. So where’s the balance in between there? How do you find that?

Fraser Jack
And now so so beforehand, you you know, great business, tracking along technology, love the use of technology? Tell us about that moment, then.

Charmaine Lamprecht
It really came out of the blue. It was a team member came up to me one day and said I think something’s not quite right here. I received an email I have a client requesting some funds to be transferred. And that’s not the email that I actually received for them. There’s a discrepancy in the amounts. And all of a sudden that was a red flag. Yep. So we had our IT, investigate that and found out we’d had a breach and it had happened five days prior and hadn’t been picked up. We didn’t have any monitoring at the time, and it wasn’t noticed. Really scary, frightening time.

Fraser Jack
Tell me about your emotional state at the time.

Charmaine Lamprecht
I think it was shock. When I look back, I realized how complacent we were. And at that time, it was just shock. And what do you do now? Like, where do you even start? So the obvious things, you know, quickly change password. Okay, but But then what? How do you start sifting through the mountains and mountains of information that passes in and out of your business every day to determine what’s been accessed?

Fraser Jack
Yep. Now, this was an email break. So it was a breach within the email system, not not not within other systems that you’re operating.

Charmaine Lamprecht
We didn’t know that at the time. But that’s what it turned out to be. So it was a breach on our office environment. But they only accessed outlook, which was very lucky because they did have access to other parts of our environment, such as SharePoint teams are the areas like that.

Danni Visser
Yep. And now coming out of that experience, what is best practice look like? Because you would have learned firsthand around what you may have been able to embed upfront to kind of stop that shock of Gosh, we’ve got a breach.

Charmaine Lamprecht
Yeah, a lot of it for us is really come down to training and awareness with the team. With all the systems and structure you can put in place to stop or slow down cybersecurity breaches. At the end of the day, your biggest risk is actually your team members accidentally clicking on something that they’re not aware, is that legitimate. And so we do a lot of training and awareness, and it starts with personal. So if they’re personally aware of their own cybersecurity risks, then that naturally transitions over to their professional life. So we really focus on how do you keep your personal information safe? And then what do you do when you come to the office? Yeah, now

Fraser Jack
that training is interesting, because you had the brakes on time ago. everybody’s aware of that. And they understand the ramifications of what goes on. But changing culture takes time, right? Yeah, absolutely. And so So how have you found that over the last year, you know, your staff coming up to a level, it’s not like, you know, we’ve got to cram in and do a whole lot of exams, it’s about ongoing.

Charmaine Lamprecht
Absolutely. It’s ongoing. So when the team member starts with us, the first session they do on their first day, walking through the door, is three hours on our security, cyber technology, access, all those sorts of things. But for the rest of the team, it’s about having an ongoing conversation. So we work with some cybersecurity experts, and they help us give monthly commentary. You know, what is happening on the network? How many incidences are coming through how many people are trying to get through our firewalls? You know, we have little prizes and things when someone picks up a fraudulent email that slipped through our system, we kind of make it fun. We keep a part of the conversation.

Fraser Jack
Yeah, I think that’s that’s the way to do it. Don’t make it too scary to talk about.

Danni Visser
Yeah, sure. Yeah, that’s a really good point. How would you suggest I mean, having a really robust process I can imagine would involve having a place where people can go, Look, I might have done this thing that was outside of protocols. And it’s resulted, like how do you create that environment? So people are open about things that they think may have gone wrong, or, you know, something that they feel is not quite right, despite all this, because if you’re doing all this training, there’s probably I should get this right, because I’ve been trained, and there’s an expectation, but I guess if it’s too stringent on that, there’s probably not the space for people to say, I’ve got a concern here, or I kind of slipped up here, or I didn’t do that particular thing. How do you manage that?

Charmaine Lamprecht
It’s definitely part of our culture, where it’s okay to get things wrong, make mistakes and fail. And I think that’s where it starts as a as a broad overview of what’s okay in our business and security as part of that we’re not perfect, we are going to make errors, we are gonna make mistakes, the worst thing we can do is put a hand up on it, and then we fix it. And that’s what we focus on first fixing it. When this particular event happened, it was devastating for the team members that were involved. They were just so upset, and, and just really concerned about our clients, the business and it was their fault. And so managing our response to that. And yes, we’re worried but also not overreacting. It’s not the team members fault. They’re also a victim of this. They didn’t do it intentionally.

Fraser Jack
Yeah, they often feel silly at the time and quite a vulnerable state. Talk to me a little bit about budget, because a lot of small firms think, oh, is this an extra budget? Now we have to spend, how’s your attitude changed towards the spending around that and budgeting for cyber in your business?

Charmaine Lamprecht
It’s definitely it’s a subset of our broader technology budget. Now, so probably back then we were maybe spending 3% of revenue. Now we’re spending about 4% of revenue, and that includes anything cyber related. And we will be doing specific cyber projects, which we fund, which are only chosen because of the security uplift that we need. So they’re not technology based. It’s not to do with our CRM or improvements or efficiency. It’s literally Security Security Training technology

Fraser Jack
lists. Yep, so 3% was technology is now 4%.

Charmaine Lamprecht
That includes over a half now. Yeah. Okay, that’s barely enough.

Fraser Jack
Yep, fantastic, and well So I think the big takeaway for me on your presentation is really around the planning that you’ve done upfront. And then the the ongoing planning that you’ve done since to have a response plan?

Charmaine Lamprecht
Absolutely. And I think it’s not a matter of if it’s going to happen, it’s a matter of when. So it is doing as much as you possibly can what you can control, but then it’s likely to happen, the amount of incidences happening now, what is going to happen to you. So what is your response going to be? What are your orders your initial plan that you have in place? And then how can you slow that breach down so that you can mitigate it as quickly as possible?

Fraser Jack
Now, afterwards, you obviously there was some reporting obligations, you want to talk us through what you did there and what was required?

Charmaine Lamprecht
So we initially spoke to our compliance officer within on the first day that it happened. And he advised us that we were likely at a breach privacy breach level because of the extent of the information in that mailbox. So it was about lodging a notification with the office, the Australian office of Provost Privacy Commissioner, yes, yeah. Oh, I see. And that was quite a lengthy process, you have a certain amount of you have a timeframe in which you need to do that in and that 30 days, you often don’t have all the information, you really need to know the extent of the breach. The data that you’re sifting through is so unstructured, it actually takes time.

Fraser Jack
We’re seeing that with some of the recent breaches. It’s about we know something’s been taken. But we’re not sure what

Charmaine Lamprecht
Yeah, and I can completely understand sort of hm, and Medibank. And why they’re taking so long, it’s very difficult to work out, not only what has been accessed, but what they’ve actually done with it, because you can view some information, have they actually taken it and sold it. And there can be two buckets of data that you’re looking at in super complex. So

Danni Visser
you had five days was that five days in between something happening, and you guys realizing that there had been a breach five days, because I’ve heard a stat in Frazer, you’re the expert in this field, but that there’s generally like 180 days between when something happens, and when someone finds out that there’s been a security breach. So it sounds like you were pretty fortunate in time, in terms of the time or the window, this sort of breach was occurring, and you’re unaware of,

Charmaine Lamprecht
absolutely. And it was like it actually came down to our verification procedures. So whenever we are transacting money, we do a soft verification. And that phone call with a client is what started the ball rolling. That hadn’t happened, if we hadn’t had that verification process, it could have been a lot longer and a lot worse. You’re fortunate

Fraser Jack
that we talked about multi factor authentication on software, that then multi factor authentication with clients is important to getting that getting that that phone call and talk to me about reporting to your clients. Because this is a this is a scary, scary thing for advice firms that to bring their clients. And I’ve seen stats where 93% of the client base expects that they will receive a call that day.

Charmaine Lamprecht
It was one of the things at the top of our mind, what do we do with our clients, they were really concerned about the information that they may have lost, we’re not even sure. And we want to talk to them. But we also don’t have a lot to tell them. So for us, we actually spent two to three days trying to work out what data do we at least know that we can, you know, share with them, but also not panic them and have them overreact when there’s so much unknown. So our first email went out within that first week. And it was very generic in the sense that this has happened, we’ve had a breach, it now has been mitigated. We’ve engaged some experts to help us do a full investigation around what has actually been lost and audited. And we will be in touch with you to let you know. And we also gave out our CEOs, phone number direct. If you have any concerns, you call us straight away, but we want you to be vigilant. In the interim, we’ll be calling you for any sort of verification any transaction. And if you receive anything from us, that doesn’t look legitimate, please let us know. And please call us the clients response

Danni Visser
to the you’re like, you’re probably quite nervous around those phone calls. And I can only imagine your team making those those phone calls and how are the clients reacting once you inform them that there had been a data breach? Well,

Charmaine Lamprecht
our clients, they’re amazing clients, they were actually wonderful. They were very understanding, they were also very thankful that we told them as early as we possibly could, even though we didn’t have all the information. And they will also, interestingly enough, they were very concerned about us and our team member who’d gone through that experience, and how awful that must feel for them. So that was a real surprise for us. Because that’s not what we were expecting the response to be to test

Fraser Jack
the relationship that you have with him. Do you think there’d be any different response today based on the recent fear, fear that’s been put through the media?

Charmaine Lamprecht
Absolutely. I think there’d be a much different response in 2018, it was relatively new that a breach would happen. It was very unusual, whereas now you’re hearing about it every second day. And I think clients rightly expect us to have really thought about what systems we have in place to protect it. And if we don’t, then we really have to be answering for it. So I do think there’d be different response today.

Fraser Jack
Yeah. Now I want to focus a little bit on the before we finish up about the future, and around being proactive in this space with your clients and letting them know what security you do have in place.

Charmaine Lamprecht
Absolutely. So we communicate with our clients a lot and we also run education sessions for them. So security on their side is just as important because if they’re hacked and they are sending us fraudulent emails, then that’s also an issue. So continuing That conversation with our clients through training through education. If something doesn’t seem right for a client, we will get our IT company to go in and have a look at their laptop and make sure it’s clean. And it’s okay.

Danni Visser
None of the clients receive that training. Do they do it? Yes. Yeah, they do it. Yeah. And how do you deliver that? Is it via video? Like how what format? Do you deliver that training to your clients?

Charmaine Lamprecht
We’ve done a couple of via webinar more recently, because we can’t meet in person. But prior to that we were doing face to face and we’d have 100 150 clients in a room and we were just talking about, you know, what information are you putting out there on the internet that people can use to then come back and fortunately, take your identity or hack your database?

Fraser Jack
Yeah, I think that’s a wonderful opportunity. You know, adding to the service that you provide your clients or better to demonstrate that you’re providing those extra services, I think is a great opportunity for practices. So man, thank you so much for coming in. And joining us fireside chat about your story. Really appreciate it.

Danni Visser
Thank you. Welcome back to the x y and FPA Congress podcast, we’ve been having 10 minute fireside chats. But this chat is a little bit different. It’s a side fireside chat so crazy. You’re the person I’m speaking to because you’re actually speaking at this particular Congress. Rather than just running the podcast, you’ve got a few things that you’re up to during the next couple of

Fraser Jack
days over the next couple of days. We’re doing obviously a lot of fireside chats. But yes, on this particular episode, I’ll be in the hot seat. The yes, we’re running a session and

Danni Visser
what’s our session on because it’s we all know that you do a lot of good work in cyber security. It’s not my area of expertise. And the reason that a lot of people are gravitating towards the information and services you’re offering in this space is because it’s a bit of an unknown for a lot of advisors. So can you take those people who are a bit like myself don’t know a lot about this. We obviously hear a lot about data breaches. We’re just talking to Charmaine from Capitol partners. Now, they had a breach back in 2018. And she’ll be sharing on the same panel that you’re on, you know, what they learned what they’re doing, how they’re preventing future attacks, because as she said, it’s not a matter of if it’s just a matter of when so can you start at the one I want? And tell us what you’re working through with advisors now? And what’s the level of understanding around cybersecurity?

Fraser Jack
You’re absolutely right. It’s a confusing and confronting topic, you know, you got to lead into the fact that nobody likes to, you know, think about it first, start with, it is confusing. There’s a lot of acronyms, there’s a lot of cyber talk, there’s a lot of technology stuff in the background that people don’t really know. And so no one looks to look no nice to feel or look silly, when they come to these conversations that’s

Danni Visser
changing so often, like just once you think you’re across what you need to know. Yeah, it changes.

Fraser Jack
Oh, yeah, yeah. And there is no silver bullet, you know, it’s not just like, Oh, I’ve got a really strong antivirus on myself, you know, that I’m done. It’s not about that. It’s about saying, you know, there’s about 12 or 13 different pieces to the jigsaw puzzle. Wherever you are in the in your current position needs to come up to a certain level, what does that level look like? Obviously, licensee, you’d have a lot of standards in place, and those sorts of things. But there are certain cyber audit levels that are appropriate for financial professionals. And, and in each one of those areas. My role really, is to take that complexity, and make it really, really simple to understand why you should care about that little thing. And how do you fix it?

Danni Visser
So where are most practices? Now is cybersecurity like, Where? Where is the baseline?

Fraser Jack
I think I think right now that the it’s not, it’s not so much around the, you know, this is a thing you need to pay attention. I think it’s pretty clear within the media that clients care about their their data, and you know, and as the primary person who’s asking, yeah, the customer that data that you know, the privacy principles you’re responsible for the data that you collect, as the business is a responsibility of the business is a responsibility of the licensee, there’s a there’s a responsibility, all the staff to protect that client data. And, and, you know, the expectation is from clients. And we’ve got clients at one end of the spectrum, you know, the will who may walk if, if the data is breached, and at the other end of the spectrum, you got the regulator and licensing and all all of those things in between. So there’s lots of reasons why so I’m not really sure that they’re willing to harp on the reasons why I think people know the reasons why.

Danni Visser
So what do you do about it? There were a firm’s out at the moment, what do they actually do about it? Because that’s where you can come in and help.

Fraser Jack
Yeah, absolutely. So the big thing is understanding that the technology is part of the puzzle. And the humans are the other part. And the humans in the office are often the ones that innovatively let things like people in and I describe the business. The humans in the business is great, hospitable humans that are trained to be very, very nice to their clients and open the door. And they’re the ones that are usually opening the doors to the to those sorts of things. So a lot of what I do is describing in physical terms, what the world what’s actually happening in your software packages. So in software, there’s a lot of assumptions we make. It’s in the cloud is backed up. No, it’s not backed up. I talked about the fact that you know that somebody’s got their clouds. Storage, for example, they should be keeping another copy of their cloud storage because, you know, they’ve got their Microsoft 365. And they’re assuming that Microsoft is backing their their data up. They’re not, what they’re doing is they’re providing you a tenancy and an office building, you’ve got an office, they provide you with the lifts, and the, and the bathrooms, and the fire sprinklers and all the things that they need to provide as a tenant. But if you let somebody into your office that starts to fire and burns out your office, you’ve lost everything in your office, you need to give a copy of that. So just describing the way things work in logical terms, I think is really important. We have conversations around how you share your clients data and best practices that are well I refer to data as diamonds, I start with the fact that if you had a diamond, and the lifetime value of a client is generally more than a diamond. So if the clients giving you a diamond, are you going to ask them to put it in the post, or are you going to provide a secure transfer. And so if you’ve got a secure transfer service, aka, you know, a, you know, give us the AKA, SharePoint or anything like that, many of the the adviser portals or the US and the technology services that are around, they’re all secure services where you can where you can securely share data, same as you know, sharing that diamond, you don’t put it in the post. But too many times, if we look at an email, there are just too many examples of important diamonds going into diamonds sitting in the mailbox. And with a mailbox, you know, what we tend to do in the real life as we clear the mailbox and we take the letters inside and throw the junk mail in the wheelie bin. But what happens in the online world is we leave a copy of that email, after we’ve opened it, we leave a copy of that as diamonds in our letterbox. And too many times the mailboxes we just heard can be breached fairly easily. And once the mailbox is breached, you can go and find all sorts I remember petrified, looked into your email, or email, and we searched for statement of advice or copy of his ID or anything like that, we would find them in the letterbox they may be open. But there’s still stash. And what we really need to do is talk about the fact that we take them out of the mailbox, and we put them in the vault. And that’s where we keep them we keep them in the vault. And we should also be talking about clients about taking their that same diamonds out of their mailbox and putting them back and keeping them in their vault, not keeping them in the mailbox at the front of the house. Yeah, it’s

Danni Visser
a it’s a it’s a it’s a big, it’s a big question to ask you. And also I understand, I guess my question that I had before was, are the systems like Slack any better? Or are they all the same? Slack any better than email?

Fraser Jack
Yeah, look, the look, the actual products themselves, are quite secure. In if they’re being used properly and not and you know, they’ve got multi factor authentication, and those sorts of things activated so that you’re not easily getting that information in. We are talking about clients, data, clients, diamonds, right, so we’re going to make sure that we can secure that as the most important precious stone. And we’ve got to make sure that they’re not in those those networks, where they’re being, you know, transferred over the internet, and we’re not being secure. So one, they’ve got to be on shore. And two, you know, they’ve got to be locked away in multiplayer mode effective. So locking stuff away, you got structured data, and unstructured data and understanding how those two things work. You’ve got email systems and locking down the back back end of email systems, because email systems are one of those things that are set up to work really well, which means you open the floodgates and you work really well. But if you if you’re trying to stop all the cyber things coming in, you actually have to close all those floodgates and make them small trickles. Turn your your your letterbox into a registered postbox, you got the secure transfer we talked about. But then you got all the security on your devices, device security, making sure that you got a really good quality one. Because within every brand, there was a there was a crap version. And with every brand, there was a really good version. And you can move to the more expensive version. Things like path password managers being used and set up properly. Things like you know, making sure that your your routers and your the way that you connect to the internet

Danni Visser
is to say this morning, I was going to connect to the Wi Fi is it No, no, no use mine. So that’s obviously

Fraser Jack
absolutely is 111 is one of those things you have public Wi Fi is one of those things that somebody can get in and start putting things on to the network to the router and getting it out everyone’s connected what ended up with a virus on their on their computer. So there’s ways that people can get through the Wi Fi into into disrupting your life. And so yeah, the way that you connect, I call it the, you know, having gates at the front of your driveway, making sure that use gates are locked, because those gateways to the Internet are certainly really important.

Danni Visser
So the human element continues to come up as a really important factor in remaining safe with cyber and your clients diamonds. What do you need to do on the human side to make sure that your cyber security protocols are really robust? Yeah,

Fraser Jack
I think the biggest thing is training your staff and that’s

Danni Visser
what Charmaine said. There’s a consistency out there and train the staff and how Now is that you’ve been in a lot of different practices now talking about this, what’s the best way to train the staff? Because I know in a lot of different organizations, I’ve done the turn up and you do the sort of the click through training and to be really transparent, I would take none of that information away and apply it. So what’s best practice in managing the human element?

Fraser Jack
Yeah, I think I think there’s two parts of that there’s, there’s the headspace? Do I really want to learn this stuff? Is this a pain? Is this a pain for me? Or is this something that I actually care about? And when you heard some of the horror stories used, do you do start caring and most staff and in these small practices have never been subjected to this training? You’ve obviously worked in large organizations before where there was, there was every organization that’s larger around financial services, provides vulnerability testing, you’ve all done fishing, you know, the fishing training that comes in their ongoing tests every three months. Yes. Yeah, exactly. Right. And so you do a lot of clicking in those three months. Absolutely. Yes. And you’ve done. You’ve clicked on the wrong. Yeah. So look, I think, I think the attitude is one thing, caring about the fact that this is your clients, diamond. So there’s a there’s a big headspace and that understanding that when you do multifactor that again, yes, it slows you down. It’s a pain. But what is it, it’s actually like a speed sign on a dangerous corner, it’s gonna slow you down for a really, really good reason that you don’t drive off the cliff. You know, it’s like understanding why you’re doing it and appreciating the fact that you’re doing it. And the

Danni Visser
time that it will save you afterwards. It’s not if it’s when

Fraser Jack
Yes, exactly right. So I think I think the big thing is around that the way that all staff are the business because it’s not just up to the owner of the business or the you know, the advisors in the business. It’s up to all staff in the business to be caring about what they how they treat their client data.

Danni Visser
Well, thanks for, you know, not only hosting the podcast today, but also joining us for a chat and being on a panel. This has been really fun Fraser thanks for interviewing me. My pleasure.

Fraser Jack
Even though you don’t that’s about the topic. Yeah.

Danni Visser
This is what I’m here to learn. Fantastic. Thanks, everyone. Thanks.