Iress Market Technology (Iress) has received increased interest from retail brokers for a modified version of the software it currently provides to financial planners.
“One of the things that we are seeing a lot of are retail broker clients that have traditionally used our Iress product looking much more around client servicing and having a need for fuller functionality around CRM (customer relationship management) work flow,” Iress head of wealth management Andrew Walsh said.
“So there is growing demand by retail broking wealth managers for adviser tools that we know well on the wealth management side. So that’s quite an interesting area at the moment.”
Iress was providing the brokers with the same financial planning software but packaging it up in a different way so it became relevant for that segment, Walsh said.
“So what we’re delivering to the retail brokers is basically a broker version of Xplan,” he said.
“It will have retail broking friendly functionality, whether that’s work flow or a broker friendly statement of advice or a portfolio review tool.
“We’re tailoring it in the same way that we’re looking to deploy Xplan within industry funds for full advice or intra-fund advice.”
Walsh, who is set to officially take the reins at Iress in the coming months, is currently undertaking a handover process with the firm’s outgoing managing director Peter Dunai.
“We haven’t set a date but it will be in the next month or two. This process has been well flagged for a long time and we’re in no rush, but we’re also not planning not to perpetuate it for longer than necessary so we can get on with the job,” he said.
