AdviceTech Podcast #5 – Netwealth AdviceTech Report – Transcript

Peita Diamantidis
Hello, and welcome to the X Y advice tech Podcast. I’m Peita Diamantidis. And this week, we’re gonna deep dive into net wealth 2022 advice tech report. So joining me here today is a believer in developing kids financial literacy and IPO survivor. The reason we call Highlighter Pens texters and the ninja level tech geek. Thank you so much for joining me on the show. Matt Heine.

Matt Heine
Thanks. Great to be here. And that’s definitely the best introduction I’ve ever received. So thank you,

Peita Diamantidis
you’re very welcome. Well, you’ll have the benchmark now, you can too painful. I love it. Now I’m keen to sort of dive into the report. It is something that I’m a big fan of. But I just wanted to get to know you and the listeners get to know you a little better through your use of technology. So let’s kick off with what your most used emoji is. Do you use emojis?

Matt Heine
I do. I was actually talking about this the other day cuz my colleagues were commenting on how I’m an over user of emojis. They’re fantastic. And given that you gave me 30 seconds heads up that this question was coming. I did. I did cheat. And I just had a look at my most used emojis on my mobile phone. I was a bit surprised actually. There’s quite a few of them. Strong Arm that gets a little nice. Clap. I find that I’m congratulate congratulating people quite often. The detective I can’t remember in what context I was using that particular one. But I’ve been I’ve been on the thumbs up. So that’s probably my most used one. Fair enough.

Peita Diamantidis
That’s a common answer that one? And what about if you just want and I’ve been asking you or I this question is probably tough because we we live with our smartphones on at all times. But if you had to delete everything off the smartphone and just keep three apps, which three? Would you keep

Matt Heine
a good question as well. I think I’m up to about about page 11. On my on my apps, I tend to download many most weeks, if I had to only leave three. And this is going to make me sound like a big geek. I will keep the AFR that is just something that I’m just about. It’s one of the first that I look at in the morning, even at the moment with the headlines. Yeah. You know, clearly the net wealth app couldn’t live without that one. And I think probably my emails,

Peita Diamantidis
yeah, nice function, right rule function function, I like it. Alright, so let’s dive into the most recent advice, tech insights sort of report. Now for the listener, if you haven’t come across the net wealth advice tech report, then well, you must would have been a living under a rock. But still, I would highly suggest that you head over to the link in the show notes, as it looks serves as a huge resource. So it can be something of a wish list or a place to start list when you considering new tech for your business. And it also gives you a really good peek at where the most tech driven practices are sort of focusing into the future. So it’s sort of a must read for me each year. But I thought, before we dive in, we might take a bit of a look at what triggered you guys to start doing it. This is the fifth year right of the report.

Matt Heine
The fifth or the sixth year. Yes, correct.

Peita Diamantidis
So what started you producing the report given you’re not actually a tech? Well, I know that you might view you guys as a tech provider. But in terms of doing the advice tech report, what triggered that?

Matt Heine
So obviously goes back quite some time now. And really, if you think back six, seven years ago, technology was starting to become pretty prevalent. You Not only our daily lives, but also clearly in our business lives. And as we were looking around the industry and talking to advisors, it became pretty apparent that it was incredibly fragmented. And when we were starting to develop our own products and think about our roadmap and what the future might look like, we started to map out, you know, what are the different technologies that are being used in the industry, you know, what would the potential integration points be. And as we went down that rabbit hole, we got deeper and deeper, and it’s turned into a report that’s now become, in many ways, a bit of an industry staple, year on year, and have been incredibly well received. But it’s an invaluable document and process for us as a business. And it’s also all about us giving back to the industry. So we’re, we can help educate advisors, or give them a bit of a nudge along on their tech, tech adoption journey, we’re always very happy to help. And each year we draw incredible insights from it.

Peita Diamantidis
And I think even I took a bit of a peek back and and you can even see reflected in the tech, the evolution from sort of the big players like the big institutions or deal groups defining what tech and what happens through to now where it is a bit more accessible to the small practices, they can make choices that are just for them. Like and I think you can see that in the report and what people are focusing in on and what they’re, you know, implementing, it’s not quite the one big institution defining where the money gets spent, you know, in advice, tech, which is a bit exciting.

Matt Heine
Absolutely, if you if you look back five or six years, you know, advice tech, really, when advisors thought about it was their financial planning software and a platform. And then there’s just such a proliferation of technology that people started to get quite, quite considered and interested in just all the different parts that could be automated. And it might have been, you know, thinking back to even some of the conferences we’ve been on Wednesday up here first hit the market, you know, just opened up people’s eyes to the possibilities of what they could actually do from not only a business efficiency perspective, but also from a client engagement perspective, and delivering better services, more real time to their client.

Peita Diamantidis
Yeah. And what’s exciting about that, too, for me is is big institutions struggle to react to needs or demands from either advisors or the consumer. Whereas once you know, small practices, or just, you know, advice, practices realize what they can do with tech, then they can be more nimble. You know, there’s probably one or two people making that decision, not a committee of 30. So that, to me, is really exciting, too, because we can respond to what’s going out in the marketplace,

Matt Heine
it was quite exciting to see some of the more progressive licensees actually realizing that trend very early on. And as we know, everyone’s incredibly business, technology doesn’t naturally come to too many people. So a number of the progressive licensees that we’re working with actually took it upon themselves to start looking out into the marketplace and trying to make sense of what the tech stack could look like. But also taking a very flexible approach to realize that it was more than just a planning software and platform discussion. It was far, far broader.

Peita Diamantidis
Yeah. And like you say, it’s, it’s, it’s gone beyond just because of the way we all interact with technology in, you know, he sort of have the key themes, you know, the things that stand out from the data you’ve collected, and I can see that there’s no particular point they see that’s really drawing out that human side of technology, it’s become more than just, you know, a numbers and us using it sort of inwardly it’s something that’s really about how the public use it. And I’m betting even how advisors use the technology. Is that right? Is that what stood out? Yeah, there’s

Matt Heine
a couple of things that stood out this year, which we’ll do a bit of a deep dive on. But it was particularly pleasing because we’ve been doing this report for a long time, as you mentioned, and for quite a few years here, we saw, you know, really high intentions, people wanting to do things, but not actually doing anything. And then really through COVID, when people stuck in their bedrooms and had a little bit more time to think about these things, but also had a real aha moment when things didn’t work, we started to see these intentions converting into action. And for us that’s been really pleasing and satisfying to, to know that people are actually thinking about these things more broadly, and then actually doing something about them. But from a people perspective, or a human side, one of the key areas of focus at the moment, which just reflects the broader macro environment that we’re in is how do we use technology? Or how do we understand how technology impacts our staff. So we’re all struggling to find stuff. We’re all struggling to retain stuff, whether it’s the great resignation or the great reshuffle, we need to be conscious of everything that we’re doing within our businesses, and no one wants to come to work and have to deal with crappy tech. We’ve got enough things going on without having to work through laboriously poor UX or UIs. And we expect these days that you’re the same way that our lives operate and social media integrates with everything else that we’re doing, that the technology we’re using at work is equally seamless, and in many cases also enjoyable.

Peita Diamantidis
It really is the team’s use of tech. I think we underrate how demoralizing it is when it’s just difficult to use. And that it’s it’s like consistent torture because they’re going into it all day every day. And they know when they turn up tomorrow, they’re going to have to do it again. You know, and so in You know, really investing some energy into even how you choose and then roll out new technology is so important because it can, and we’ve experienced this in our practice, it can transform the morale and energy of the business. You know, whereas I think, historically, I think a lot of practices, unlike I’m sure with you, and your business is much larger, where you really do consider these things as quite a project, right? That’s natural in bigger businesses. In small businesses. I reckon there’s the GE, I saw this at a conference that looks cool, let’s implement and that’s about as far as it gets. And management, it’s so important, right?

Matt Heine
Like, yeah, change management, what it’s all about, but you’d be surprised. So, you know, the research at the moment would suggest that, you know, the best advice firms using about 17 Different parts of technology, and the industry average is about 14. But look, I love trying out new tech, using new tech. But I’ve got to say every time we need to introduce new technology, whether it’s a new HR system, learning system, workflow, system, whatever it might be, it can be really hard work. And it’s the last thing that many people want to do is to come in and learn a new system is logging in, where do I go to find what what do I actually need to do? How do I prove something, it can be a massive waste of time, and as you say, quite demoralizing. So that change management piece, getting people involved in the process earlier with the selection, and then having really solid training plans and, more importantly, actually carving out time throughout the week to have training sessions, because we can’t magically create more time than there really is. And people are busy and don’t necessary want to be learning these things at six or seven o’clock at night or first thing in the morning.

Peita Diamantidis
Absolutely. And, look, we’ve found even, you know, repetition isn’t isn’t necessary. Six months later, let’s revisit that early training we did on this piece of tech, like just constantly revisiting and, and re looking at it, we’ve sort of taken approach. And this isn’t for the tiny little apps, we might try out for a little bit a big choice is we treat it like it’s a recruitment. So we go through as much structure as you would to both select, you know, narrowed down a list, a, you know, recruit, and then even performance manage a new person, we do that with big pieces of tech, just because it sort of makes it that real, because a good piece of tech is like a person, you know, they become like a great resource in your business. So, you know, I love that you guys are drawing that out for staff, because I think if anything, there’s a whole core of people in the industry, the support staff that could be paraplanners, or admin. And I think there’s generally a little unloved. And if we can roll out great tech, it’s going to make their lives so much easier.

Matt Heine
Absolutely. And I think there’s also a risk that, you know, firms are introducing new technology, without going through that recruitment process, as you put it, to try and solve an individual problem without thinking about it more broadly, and understanding how does it fit into the broader advice tech stack? How do we move data between the systems, and that can obviously lead to huge inefficiencies, but also real risk. So if you’ve got different data, sitting in different systems, that’s incorrect, or, you know, not meant to be collected such as TF ns, there is a huge risk there.

Peita Diamantidis
There really is. I mean, I’m one of the things that’s one of the things that came out of the report two is this sort of rethinking the way we look at data as not an individual system based thing, but across, you know, a practice or even an industry. So talk me through what came out about the way people are looking at that differently and what their plans are, for the next sort of 12 months,

Matt Heine
data, something that caught what we’re doing at the moment. And I think every business needs to be thinking about data in a very different way. It’s, it really is a firm’s most valuable asset. So again, looking at the research, a number of firms across the industry from number of years have been starting to think about data and how it might be used, is it something that they can use internally for exception reporting or trying to create efficiencies, or deliver better client engagement and better client outcomes? But the challenge is that, you know, with 17 different technologies typically operating in one of these great firms, where do you start? How do you actually pull that data out, make sure that it’s consistent and the same, so that you can then push it around around the ecosystem. And, you know, our our interest in these areas been now for many years. And that was a big part of the reason that we invest into Zeppo. As it turns out, that was a really good decision. And certainly, it’s now looking like it’s the most used data integration tool in the industry. So excuse the plug. It’s what the research says, and it is it is externally audited. But you know, the best best firms so the advice tech firms so that is firms that we’ve identified within the market that have got high profitability, high client satisfaction, high client engagement, as a result of the technology usage, are already adopting this technology, very deeply. And currently is about 36 to 40% of advice Tech Stars using some sort of data integration solution, remarkably, in the next 12 to 24 months, that’s going to jump to 76%. So what that really says is, if you’re not thinking about it, it’s going to become very hard to compete against these advice, tech stars who are doing everything they can to use technology to their advantage.

Peita Diamantidis
And I think we often think, you know, the, the data in this case might be either like product providers, so there might be some about the with the investments with Things like that. Or it might be something to do with our CRM. But there’s so much more than that, to me one of the key things that I really want to get a handle on his capacity, you know, so what’s the volume of activities that are going on when are the peaks and troughs, because we’re all going to, like you said before, we’re all going to struggle with hiring great people in the next little while. And you will be able to do that really well, if you beautifully understand exactly what you need, as opposed to just doing what we all do all the time. And gee, we’ll just get a advisor or just get a pair of planning. And so I think the data we can draw out, there’s about what gets completed, what doesn’t, where the bottlenecks are, you know, all that sort of stuff, is the sort of dials or dashboard that we you know, would be fantastic for each business and really empower them to make the perfect next hire.

Matt Heine
Yeah. And to that point, and again, I’ll talk to zip, I just could assist them, I understand pretty intimately. That’s one of the recent enhancements we’ve just rolled out. So separately, basically integrates with about 35 Different enterprise solutions. So it goes in there. So x plan, midwinter class BGL, all the mortgage origination platforms, as well as workflow systems, etc. So it’s got a very, very broad set of data. Each night, it goes in, reaches into those various systems pulls the data out, groups, it matches it, so that you can then create a single client file across all of those different systems. Importantly, it’ll raise exceptions. So if your got date of birth, different, you know, between class and explained, for example, it’ll flag that there’s a discrepancy in the data. And that goes extremely deep. But it also looks at to your point, things like activity, it looks at revenue. So through a set of very neat dashboards, advisors, for the first cut time can really start to understand okay, well, what is my revenue per client group or family group? How does that compare to prior corresponding periods? What are the services that they’re buying? Have I provided them with FTAs, and the arrows, etc, that they might need? And then we now benchmark that so you can start to see how does your individual metrics compare against the broader industry? So are you running more or less clients in the broader industry? How does your revenue per client group for a particular size, right, so you start to get down and really understand how your business is tracking against all of those key metrics, using data from a very, very broad range of solutions, so that things have really accelerated in the last couple of years, and it’s just great to see the direction it’s all heading.

Peita Diamantidis
And the connection of those data points can be so powerful, because I think, you know, what might be the case is you’ve got a team of advisors, and you might look at, say, revenue per advisor is a really simple metric. But, you know, one might have, say, as a slower time to turn around, they might get through fewer, but their clients are actually stickier, you know, so it’s being able to combine those data points and really see a sort of matrix for that advisor, as opposed to some, you know, what seems like black and white data, but it’s, it needs to be given context, you know, and so that’s what I love about that sort of overarching data look, is its context, its depth to the data, meaning as opposed to just is it more or less, you know, which doesn’t really add that much value.

Matt Heine
And that’s the next sort of, I guess, horizon for us and the teams working on it, you know, we want to be able to prove that all the things that we’re talking about actually add value. So for example, let’s look at profitability per per advisor, or per practice, where they use a managed account for some clients or all of their clients, or none of them. Let’s look at things like client engagement, or this the work that we’re doing around client portals, is it actually adding value? Or is it just something that we’ve cooked up in the background based on the feedback that we’re getting that may or may not be right, so actually statistically proving a lot of the things that we’re talking about, and then allowing you to slice and dice that data and benchmark it against the cohorts that you want?

Peita Diamantidis
Nice. Nice. And so you mentioned client portals. So client engagement was another sort of key theme that came out of the report. What I mean, to me, actually, the number of advisors even looking into getting client portal, that I mean, that ratcheted up significantly, that was interesting, it was probably a bit faster than I might have expected.

Matt Heine
Yeah, I think this is definitely a result of COVID. So as we know, particularly as Victorians, we spent a lot of time at home and all of our lives moved online, for everything, whether it was shopping classes, gym classes, and within that most of the activities we’re participating in, were actually done via mobile. So the actual tech adoption by all age groups, even the older age groups, was was very significant. And we often talk about this acceleration of adoption. And we’re probably five to 10 years ahead of where we may have been, had COVID not happened. And I guess the outcome of that from from a client perspective is that and interestingly, when we’re talking to the advisable Australians, when they’re looking for an advisor, their use of technology is actually part of their consideration set. So they want to know that their advisor actually has a digital way of interacting with them. Because as as we’ve probably talked about before, believe it or not, no one enjoys signing paperwork. So little things like that. And I often joke the biggest innovation in fin services is the digital signature. You know, clients are actually looking for a lot more than that they’re lost. first experience was with a social media platform typically, or Netflix or one or the other streaming services. And they’re highly personalized, really seamless, frictionless experiences. And that’s what they expect from all of their providers, whether it’s financial services, or a social media company. Yeah,

Peita Diamantidis
absolutely. And the, I mean, the interesting thing about client portals that we’ve been looking at this too, is, I think all of us are also sick of having so many channels that we need to be aware of to try and interact, you know, even me as an individual, let alone as an advisor. And I think the beauty of a portal is you can start to have that window that the client knows that’s the way to get a hold of unit. But that’s the ideal channel. And it can be used in lots of different ways. They don’t just have to be into chat, it can be all sorts of things, but it’s just that consistent channel. And it can cut through the noise of all the others. I mean, we’re now at the point where both email and SMS are so spammed, it’s becoming impossible to get through to people. So we need a direct channel, I don’t think we’ve got a choice really,

Matt Heine
there is nothing worse than getting spammed by SMS. That’s my biggest bugbear. And I agree with that everyone’s getting smashed by information across every channel. And you know, a key point of difference, or really a benefit for an advisor in the future is being that curator of information and driving them to a portal where they know and they can trust that the information that they’re getting, has actually had oversight, if you like, because, again, you pick up the fin today, and clearly markets overnight, have been disastrous. But the headlines amplify that. And it’s not productive for an advice relationship. And it creates anxiety and uncertainty and all the emotions that everyone listening would be aware of. So using a client portal, there is so much utility and really, as a business and as advisors, it’s about thinking about what are the multiple touch points that we can deliver on a digital Bayes is not to replace advice or face to face, but to augment it and create a self service environment. That is effectively 24/7 Where you could be delivering daily news broadcast emails, market updates, it could be document signing, could be that they just want to check on their mortgage repayments, their portfolio, or just check to see how things are going. So there’s there’s so many things that can be done and and effectively centralized through a branded environment strengthens that relationship. It’s a bit of a no brainer moving forward.

Peita Diamantidis
Yeah, I agree. And I think for all of us, what we’ve noticed is we’ve been watching the cost of of advice into practice, from tight dock, but particularly in the last few years. And while the production of advice has always been a focus, what I’m now seeing is that admin or follow ups is costing us more than the advices right now. So to me, anything that helps cut through for the client to just get them to act quickly, because it’s right in their hand. And like yep, nope, or site like anything like that, because it’s not, it’s not that they’re avoiding doing it. It’s just that they’re busy. We all, you know. So anything that cuts through that I think can massively reduce the extent of that sort of mindless follow up activity that can go on in a practice, which I think we’ve probably all experienced over the last little while. One of the other client engagement things that was interesting to me in the report was the presentation tools that took a bit of a hike to didn’t, you know, and I mean, I love the idea that maybe more advisors are using things like Canva, which hold them wouldn’t have ever known what it was, you know, a few years ago. So that’s a bit exciting.

Matt Heine
Yeah, it certainly changed. And again, I think a lot of this comes back to that sort of need to deliver more interactive, personalized reviews online. So clearly, during COVID, again, it wasn’t possible to sit down with a client and do a page turn. So things went online. And I think when you put a PDF online, you realize just potentially, how does it convey? So you know, what, what are the things that can be done, you know, whether it’s videos, GIFs audio files, or just even the ability to drill down and do reviews online that are more interactive, and clearly, that’s now being picked up across the industry. And I agree, you know, Canva is a very easy tool to be to use. Clearly, it’s been very successful. And there’s just it just adds that element of customization and in many cases fun to, to review.

Peita Diamantidis
And any, any listeners that haven’t checked out Canva I mean, they have marketing professionals that design templated presentation tools that people use to get VC funding like these things are designed to have impact to engage and so you’re Why would we try and do that ourselves. That’s not you know, use the tools that we have sort of available to us.

Matt Heine
I just don’t know when the other the other key point in this this is not necessarily related to device tick reports just how humans absorb information. That’s the other key part that came out of the the presentation area, which was that we need to recognize people absorb information differently. Some people are oral or they prefer to receive information through an audible means but also most people are visual. So that ability to think about information, whether it’s through infographics, or just better charting and more visual graphs, and then supporting it with with the detail for those that want to delve input really important, and trying to understand your clients and have that conversation with them. So that in future again, you can personalize reviews to to their needs and outcomes. I was turning to an advisor the other day that this particular one operates in the the family office, high net worth space. They spend most of their time actually on their review PECS to the point where some of the older clients or the matriarchs patriarchs, they have specific requirements around the fonts that are used the font size, the colors, sounds ridiculous. And it’s not just that they’ve got nothing else to complain about. It’s up to them. It’s really important. But very few of us actually ask our clients, how do you want to receive this information? Do you want more in peace? Or do you just want a quick summary? Do you understand the information I’m giving you all those sort of things?

Peita Diamantidis
Absolutely. And I think the more I mean, I’d love every listener to really, you know, do some digging and understand what an infographic truly is, because we’ve been producing graphs in our industry, for years, decades, even that take five minutes to describe. And if you need to describe and run the client through the graph, it is failing, it’s not doing its job. So whereas an infographic is designed for a snapshot, immediate message, you know that you can just look at it immediately understand what it means, and what it’s trying to tell you. So I think if more of us could try and understand that and deliver things, that way we’d find the cut through would be massive. So you’re so the client portal thing came up engagement, clearly at net wealth, specifically, you’ve been investing in that as a tool that, you know, advisors can take advantage of, for their clients. I mean, you know, there’s apps for platforms and you know, clients can see the balances and all that sort of stuff. How does the net wealth portal go beyond that? What did you guys and what’s on the radar that you want to put in the portal to sort of really take advantage of the insights you’ve got from the report?

Matt Heine
Is this a trend we identified a few years ago, and it was pretty clear what was happening in the mobile space. So we started to work through what would our strategy was, and potentially slightly altruistic in its approach, but we wanted to create a bit of technology that was independent of the net wealth platform, and we felt that was really important if we were going to be successful and have the adoption that we’re starting to say. So what we’ve built out is a bit of technology that can be white labeled, so it’s fully native for Android and iOS. We delivered it initially with the typical sort of platform information. So you can log in using your face and all those sort of important security features to get your portfolio. But we did set out to design it so that it was a bit more engaging than just, you know, I guess your your portfolio and basic information. So we had to design something that we felt was going to appeal to the millennials or the the millennials with money, the emerging affluent, as well as the established affluent. So those older clients that also had significant portfolio value. So trying to straddle both of those markets, and get something appealing to both was was quite a design challenge. But we feel we got there. And then it was important that we started to referring back to our discussion earlier, think about and and build out the other things that people might want to do within that financial app outside of just looking at their portfolio, because we recognize that that’s not something people should necessarily be doing every day or every week. And many people might actually, in fact, only do it each year when they get their annual statement. So what what else can we do to bring people back into the app to create that that engagement model. So we introduced bank feeds, so you can link through about 170 different institutional feeds, including frequent flyer points and afterpay balances, all of the banking and debt which you’ll be able to link through to your property. We’ve just gone live with property feeds in the in the desktop, and they will be going to the mobile in the next couple of weeks where you can link through to domain and fall through all of the information. So pictures valuations, which you can override if you if you don’t agree. And at the end of October, we’ll be introducing the ability to link all of the data collected from within Zepo into the mobile app. So what that means for a firm that uses net wealth, and one of the other platforms, they can use a consistent digital experience and interface for all of their clients, regardless of the platform that they use. And that was really important to us, because we understand and recognize that, whilst we fantastic, you know, a practice isn’t going to use entirely net wealth. There’s always reasons whether it’s through transition, or tax, or just different feature set that our practice we use two or three platforms. So being able to support all of the platforms, bringing your banking, and also your property and, and also things like overtime, Xero and MYOB data, so you can look at your financial data and firmware documents. So that’s, that’s all in place or getting very close. Beyond that all the things that we talked about. So chat, document, vaults, documents, signing, they’re all very much on the roadmap, as well as the ability to set tasks and workflow and have real time consent and digital consent.

Peita Diamantidis
Yeah, and I think, you know, clients need us to NEC you know, a lot of clients just need us to nudge and nag but if that can be an alert on their phone that is a cut through that you just can’t achieve any other way. You know, it’s just it’s so powerful. So I think for all it seems like a small Will thing, being able to set the client to do as opposed to us is so it’s magic, I think that will make a world of difference for people, particularly if they can then immediately act, you know, if they can do that within the app. That’s powerful. And I think the other thing I’d say, you know, with the combination of, say, the network feed, but then bank feeds is, these sort of things are really exciting to us. Because like, that’s fantastic. The thing is, the public thinks that’s what is possible already. Like, it’s that’s a problem with a lot of these innovations. Is that like, we’ll do, do you mean, you couldn’t do that before? You know, so, you know, it’s great that they’re coming. But it’s just something that like, well, of course, I mean, I guess, you know, when they don’t understand a lot of their bank, you know, even their bank apps won’t do that sort of thing, you know, so they can’t see everything in one place. So I love that if they can’t do it with a bank app, at least they can, with their investment or super, that will be able to capture everything else. So I think that’s a real win for the client.

Matt Heine
I still love that moment, though, when we when we showed some of our clients and it’s almost, it’s almost like magic. When all this information suddenly appears within the one portal that you write has become a bit of an expectation. And we’re certainly not trailblazing in that regard. But we felt that was an important foundational feature that was almost a must have before we could really sort of take on and tackle the client portal market.

Peita Diamantidis
Yeah, definitely. I completely agree. So in terms then of was there any other standouts, in terms of the report that you wanted to cover things that were like those big themes that that stood out for this year?

Matt Heine
So data integration and data integration, technology, huge, we’ve talked about mobile and client engagement are very significant. The other one, and I don’t want this to sound like an ongoing advertisement for net worth. But you know, managed managed accounts are having just incredible growth and have become increasingly mainstream. And what what we see is, every time there’s volatility or market corrections, the level of inquiries for managed accounts tends to spike. When people look back and say, That is the last time I ever want to have to generate hundreds of arrows or whatever it might be to change client portfolios, which then took me three weeks to implement when it could have been done, effectively overnight. So we saw some incredible outcomes off the back of the COVID volatility and the more recent volatility with portfolio managers were meeting effectively daily, looking at overnight data, making rapid changes, de risking portfolios across all clients. So it’s very equitable, equitable, and then also taking advantage of opportunities on the way up. So managed accounts, I think, are expected to rise to about 60% adoption across the market in the next 12 to 24 months and currently sitting at 45. But with the advice TechStars and more professional firms and integrated firms having already adopted and very much on their managed account journey.

Peita Diamantidis
Yeah, exciting. And that’s sort of I mean, you’ve got multiple layers, then it’s the client focus, it’s the staff to the internal efficiencies, like there’s multiple layers there, which is fabulous. And that’s how we’ll get a real sort of evolution of how we do things is when it covers, you know, all of them. Well, I’m sort of curious, then as we sort of lean into wrapping up, then, you know, you’ve been, you know, like maybe a ticket for a long time, and you’ve been looking forward or trying to look forward for advice. For some time. What do you see as the thing you’re really curious about that bit further out? Like, what’s the thing that seems like that’s the next exciting thing, and we can all sort of look forward to or implement.

Matt Heine
So there’s a lot of things happening in the industry. Personally, I’m really excited to see a lot of the initiatives that we’ve been working on over the last four or five years coming together for a really cohesive environment. So for me, that’s really exciting. And I think in the next six to 12 months, we’ll be in an incredible position to really help advisors drive, efficiencies, stuff, engagement, but also the client engagement at the bit that I’m intrigued and very curious about at the moment. And I’ve just finished a very long winded article in the fin about the the advice review at the moment. It’s just where that’s going to end up I mean, there is talk at the moment about scrapping of best interest, duty scrapping SOA scrapping are always and effectively providing an environment whereby anyone working within a financial institute can give advice. So I mean, this is, you know, this is serious, and the implications are very wide ranging. And a big part of that is just digital advice. What does that actually mean? Do clients want to do it themselves? Are they still looking for a coaching relationship? Is it about again, augmenting the advice relationship? Where does that actually go? And I think, you know, clearly, there’s a lot of work to be done. In many ways. Whilst a lot of this is great news for the industry, there’s going to be a huge amount of work to implement any of these changes. So sometimes, the removal of legislation is as disruptive as the introduction of legislation, but it appears to be heading in the right direction. And ultimately, if we can lower the cost to serve lower the cost of advice and provide advice to more Australians, that’s an awesome outcome.

Peita Diamantidis
Yeah, and I think, you know, losing some of those handcuffs that I feel maybe the industry is being restrained by I think he’s exciting. You know, I’m with you on that. But, you know, this is the I’ve built a house and it’s so ugly, I’ve decided I’m going to knock knock it down and build it again. That’s still a horrible process. I kick out to underwrite that it’s hard enough doing it once alone deciding to wipe the thing out and start again. So I, you know, as a practice owner, I’m wary of how difficult that will be and that it’ll be a bit retread. That’s the other frustration, isn’t it? Is it like we’ve done all this effort, we’re going to be doing it again, clearly. So that I mean, that’s hard not to get a little frustrated.

Matt Heine
Totally. And having spent way too much time and way too much resources, even on things like fee consent and fee renewal last year, to read that that might be on the chopping block is in many ways, fantastic news, but my God, wait to build? Yeah, exactly. And obviously interesting for us, and no doubt everyone listening, you know, there’s a whole heap of stuff that we’re working on around, you know, digitizing our lives and all the rest of it. Do we stop that work? Or do we push ahead with it? This, this could take a long time, and there’s a lot of water to go under the bridge? And I think, unfortunately, it’s probably the latter. This could go in any direction, I think, has the potential become very politicized as well.

Peita Diamantidis
Yeah. And I think the unfortunate part of all of us it is, is it’s just more uncertainty. And I think that’s probably what we’re all a bit done with. You know, I think change is great. I mean, you and I probably are at the top end of really enjoying that process. But I think uncertainty is difficult, you know, and it’s difficult to sustain. managing that. So I’m with you, let’s I’m sort of pairing along with the view that there may be some new news down the track. But hey, we’ve just got to continue as is because who knows how long it’ll take? You know? So, but I mean, I have to meet one of the things that and I don’t know whether you’ve played with much at all, you know, VR was touted for some years, it’s been touted as sort of the next best thing. And I’ve always struggled a bit, you know, I mean, nobody really wants to look at a graph in 3d, right? I mean, that’s just not going to engage a consumer. But I’m excited to see whether anybody sort of takes it down the goals path where somebody could be looking at their future. And then based on scenarios, it Gray’s out, you know, almost like you know, that thing you wanted to do? Nope, that’s not possible. So it sort of grows, you know, that sort of thing where you make, what the choices they’re making really tangible. So I don’t know whether you’ve seen anything like that out there or on, you know, South by Southwest joints, and all those sorts of things you’re doing is anybody getting really clever with VR, or is it still a bit of a game as Paradise, and that’s the only way it’s being used.

Matt Heine
I actually went and bought myself an Oculus. At the start of the year, for this exact reason, I had to understand where it was going what it all meant. Also, I was really interested in what it means for the future of work. Because in the same way that we’re now on a on a zoom call or website call. If people do continue to work remotely, which they will, is there a better way to actually engage in a 3d world, I think having a meeting or an executive or a board meeting with avatars is probably still a little way off. I think it provides some interesting opportunities for advisors when delivering reviews to their clients remotely, because it could be a far more interactive experience where you sit around a virtual table and your choice of location. So it might be that you do want to have a meeting in Hawaii, and and then you’ve got these incredible resources at your fingertips almost where you can point to the wall and pull up different scenarios and graphs that are far more interactive. Your example is actually one that I presented on, probably five, six years ago now, which was exactly that. So you work through a risk profile, and you show the scenario outcomes of taking on different types of risk. So your risk profile says you need to be a high risk to get to the objective that you want, which is drinking champagne on a ship. Unfortunately, you’ve also suggested you’re very conservative, and the thought of investing into anything other than a term deposit makes you anxious. And therefore that large piano ship that you’re wanting to go on might be more like a type boat, going down the canals of somewhere less exotic, and but but actually being able to visualize that and those those some great research done. And I think they’ve actually implemented it to try and help people quit smoking and drinking. And they basically simulated what their faces and their bodies would look like if they continued at the rate that they were. And I think when you end up staring back at yourself, and it has the the the with smoking without smoking, visual, is pretty confronting, and it actually changed people’s behaviors very significantly. So there’s no reason that that can’t be done. The Oculus is pretty, pretty uncomfortable. I think the hardware needs to get better. But look, I think it’s not here tomorrow. It’s probably not next year, but at some point in the future, we will see some really interesting use cases.

Peita Diamantidis
Yeah. And I think particularly if you can, like you’re saying not replicate reality, in virtual reality, it’s like, no, it needs to be better. You know, like it needs to be even to attend conferences. Like why wouldn’t I fly in on the Millennium Falcon, as part of the VR experience? Don’t make me walk through a conference center, you know, so I think that’s the way we sort of let our imagination go. And I think that’s how we can really sort of, you know, lift the energy about it was, we’ve covered a lot. So is there anything else we’ve missed anything else you wanted to highlight?

Matt Heine
I’m sure there is but I’m also conscious that all of this stuff’s like drinking from a fire hydrant. So If I haven’t complained about the amount of information everyone’s receiving earlier, what why don’t we leave it at that?

Peita Diamantidis
Perfect. All right advice, explorers, if you’d like to find out more about the advice tech report, and net wills client portal, then the website links are going to be in the episode shownotes, along with Matt’s LinkedIn details, if you want to, you know, stalk him and nudge him about some things you might want to add to it, well, then please reach out. Look, I hope you the listener got some value out of sort of hearing us geek out over the future of technology, you know, and this is what happens when you get to techniques. You know, with mics, we’re always gonna go a bit longer and get excited about the neediness. But look, thank you so much for joining us, man for net, well, supporting the first season of the xy, big vise tech podcast,

Matt Heine
pleasure, good to be involved.

Peita Diamantidis
So have you already checked out the 2022. net wealth advice tech report, you know, or perhaps you even utilize a client portal like net worth? So the others out there, you know, maybe do you agree or disagree with our discussion. So either way, please share your insights on the x y platform, as I’d love to hear your take, along with, you know, what tech really caught your eye in the report, there’s a lot of detail there. And there’s even sort of three sections of the report, you can download separately. So there’s a lot to digest, but I’d really encourage you to take that time. And in terms of sort of my thoughts on it, then, you know, this report is a really great example of where your curiosity muscle that we’ve sort of been developing over these episodes will come into play. So before perhaps before you even take a look at the report, give yourself just like five minutes to brainstorm what areas you feel need an upgrade in your business, maybe areas you feel would lift operations, or the client experience or your effectiveness, you know, just some bullet points really just get you thinking down on paper, think about maybe the short or medium term, and then even in the longer term, then read through the advice tech report, and take a look at the trends. But also sort of just trust your gut on and see what really catches your eye in the report. What are the things that stand out? What are the things that seem like Oh, hold on, I think that could be something that could really resolve that challenge we’re facing or that opportunity we want to take. So then take a look back at the list you made at those immediate needs. And see if some of the tech you’re both curious about might also meet the need, right. So we’re starting to sort of align both the things that we’re interested in, and it catches our eye and the things we know should be a focus in the business. And to Matt’s point, give some real thought as to how they might roll out and add further value down the track. And think about the bigger picture. Think about where this is taking you. You know, and feel free to also just make a wish list or you know, curious app list as well, you know, something you can go back to later of the apps or even the tech categories that you might want to check out when you sort of got a moment and it’s a bit quieter, it might be later in the year or the beginning of a new year. And you want to check a few more things out and get your your energy your energy up. So make one of those lists so that you can just add things to it and you know, you won’t miss them. Now, as we’ve been talking about successfully implementing technology, you know, how do you roll it out with your staff? What are the change management techniques you need? Then for today’s curiosity corner, I’m going to bring to your attention a little app I’ve come across that does one specific thing really well. For this week’s curiosity corner, I’d love you to check out tango. Now you’ll find it@tango.us.us. And basically, their tagline is document what you’re doing instantly. This is basically a free browser extension that actually generates these gorgeous step by step guides while you’re doing something you want to explain to somebody else. Yes. So basically, you turn Tango on, and you just complete the process that you’re trying to capture. And Tango documents your step by step actions with automatic screenshots and written instructions. It does all of that for you. Then once you’ve completed this task, then you can trim you can revise it a bit. You can even finalize, you know your new step by step workflow description. You can add text descriptions, you can blur some stuff out, and you can annotate it to your heart’s content. And then you’re able to either link it links, you know, create a link so somebody can look at it directly. You can download it as a PDF, you can copy and paste it, or you can even embed it in existing documents, maybe a learning management system or wiki, or even a team chat, you know, so this is fantastic for getting new hires up to speed really fast, right? Because it’s every step you take to do something, it can massively improve productivity for you and your team. Because you get the ninja tips. The team can just quickly do the ninja tip and then share it With the team, and you can even empower customers with some self serve sort of resources. So showing them how to click on things, showing them how to click, you know, through a portal, showing them how to, you know, all that sort of thing can be captured for those that like to see or maybe even print out and have something next to them as they’re trying it for the first time. So, look, Tango is well worth a look. And I’d love to hear what you think of it. Well, that’s all we’ve got for this week. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast so you’ll get your advice tech fix automatically sent to you each week. And if you’d like a speaker at our next event to brief your audience on how they too can become bionic advisors then please reach out to me on LinkedIn forward slash Peita MD That’s p e ITAMD. Otherwise, I look forward to turning up in your earbuds next week. And remember, advice explorers Stay curious.