We spend our time trying to convince financial institutions about great new ways to engage customers, but still they go down the tried and true route.

So we end up feeling like Dilbert a lot – not to mention our tech team here is a bunch of very snappy dressers

This week when I was speaking with one of the major Australian banks, I was told that the door has completely shut on ‘cloud services’ because they were not secure. Not just we are tightening up our due diligence, a statement that cloud options will not even be considered.

Now, I am totally on board with financial institutions being extremely cautious in engaging with external services – there can be no compromises here. But it should not be a total block of cloud services as an answer, it should be a ‘this is how high our security bar is’ please prove your solution can meet those requirements.

We have gone to extreme lengths to ensure that our own enterprise cloud solution is a worthy partner in the financial cloud. We engage a tier-1 managed provider, we adhere to the highest levels of all security standards and we have 24×7 penetration testing. In fact I am sure we are a lot more secure in many areas than some of their financial solutions.

So our feelings on being told by a major player they are now not even looking at any solution from the cloud something only Dilbert can capture for us.

I am sure they will get on-board in the end!

Their current cloud offering consists of two main solutions around Email and Collaboration and Mobile Security.

Their Cloud Solutions landing page has a lot of cool tools and information about the cloud. One in particular we are pleased so say is the Digital Ready Survey developed and powered by us here at AdviceConnect.

At AdviceConnect we are all about powering cloud based advice solutions. Though we usually work in the financial services our tools can just as easily handle other verticals and this is a great example.

In this case, Optus Business wanted to create a “Digital Ready Index” that took answers from a consumer’s online survey and applied a whole lot of research they have been leading in the space to assess just how “Digital Ready” their small business was – and further, how did they rate against their industry competitors.

This component we developed for Optus leverages all our platform’s advice giving power – our configurable looks and feel allows our components to match the style of our client’s web site. Our strong calculation engine was able to crunch the numbers and derive a digital ready score for the consumers, and our workflow engine enabled us to lead a consumer through the steps to completion, register and submit their survey so that they also received a copy of their personalised results and the full research documentation.

At the end of the day, we help our clients ‘disturb’ their customers into action by providing powerful self assessment and advice tools to drive a call-to-action.

They had a need to get a new Micro-site up for their annual conference this year – and thats where we were happy to be able to help out!

Based on their new branding look and feel, we were able to put together a WordPress site that we were able to jointly administer and fill.

Thanks to both teams, we got a great informative site up in double time which delivered the content about the program, sponsorship and logistics to thousands of advisers.

You can see the full site at www.fpaconference.com.au

Of course Paul offers a full range of financial advice services, but our SiteExpress website has given him the platform to really connect with his clients and keep them connected to his business.

See a snapshot of the site we put together for Paul and his team of check it out at www.ethicalsuper.com.au

They preferred to send some strong messages matched with the right images to capture the style of their advice practice.

It took as all a while to find the right images on iStockphoto but in the end the results have been fantastic.

This site is a great example of where ‘less is more’!

See a shot of the site below or check them out at www.totalclaritygroup.com.au

Get your own great website by using our fully managed website solutions SiteExpress. Click here to learn more about SiteExpress adviser websites.

Mr Morales tells us:  “AdviceConnect has given us the opportunity to engage our clients in an efficient and cost effective manner. Getting the website up and running was hassle free and the Folio functions makes interacting with our clients easy.  It’s a pleasure working with the AdviceConnect team, their knowledge and hard work makes our lives so much easier.”

MCM is trying to make financial advice more accessible to more clients – particularly through their corporate super program where they want to help all employees of a company not just the high net-worth ones. How does this get done? By providing more services online.

Where as most financial advisers are in denial about needing a professional online presence – the team at MCM consider it a key part of their business. For these cutting edge advice practices AdviceConnect considers itself the technology partner for our clients – they can ask us whatever they want and we help as we can.

Traditionally, financial adviser sites have been pretty terrible with most advisers using a cousin, a mate, a mate’s brother to ‘knock-up’ their website if indeed they have one at all – but is shows! For a site to really impress clients – it needs a professional touch -this is where AdviceConnect comes in with SiteExpress. SiteExpress handles every aspect of web development and ongoing management taking the hassle out of owning a website.

MCM uses two of AdviceConnect’s Adviser solutions – SiteExpress is our ‘pay-as-you-go’ site development and ongoing management of the site – this give them the core professional look and feel to the site. Then for much richer client engagement they have embedded the Folio Client Tools that give their clients their own secure sign-in area where they can get access to financial tools and engage with the MCM advice team online.

Click on an image below to see some of the screen snapshots of their new site below or go to www.mcmwealth.com.au

Just-Ezi’s car insurance calculator asks only 5 fields – Make, Model, Year, Postcode and Drivers Age then applies its proprietary algorithms against its pricing database to come up with the 10 most likely cheapest car insurance suppliers. Just-Ezi worked with AdviceConnect for 18 months to refine the aggregation and calculator engine.

In keeping with our advice platform client – Just-Ezi is helping customers self-assess, understand what is possible and then take the next steps to informed decisions. The AdviceConnect Fusion platform enables our clients  to develop rich customer interactions that help them on the path to transaction conversion.

The JustEzi car insurance calculator is built as a financial workflow component on the AdviceConnect Fusion platform. The component is then embedded into the main Just-Ezi website as an iFrame. AdviceConnect’s SiteExpress team also developed and manage the main JustEzi WordPress site.

Click below to see some of the images of the site or go to www.justezi.com.au to see it for yourself.

Industry Fund Financial Planning is a part of IFS – Industry Fund Services – Australia’s leading provider of specialist financial products, services and support for industry super funds and their members. Industry Funds Services supports its 30+ shareholder Industry Funds.

Services offered online at IFFP’s newly upgraded site:

• Savings and Investment Calculators
• Superannuation Calculators plus a Super Consolidation Service
• Ask an Adviser
• Find an Adviser
• Frequently Asked Questions

See the site in action have a look at their personal calculators section or their online consolidation services.

The new site helps members self assess using the calculators but allows them to ask questions, book appointments and get some online services in  a much more cost-effective way.

Industry Funds Financial Planning is using these calculators and tools to help members disturb themselves into action. Because the financial tools are ‘active’, a member can do more than self-assess – they can send their details to the central online advice team that help direct members to face-to-face field advisers as required.

Click on the images below to see a  gallery of screen snapshots of their latest sign – all with embedded AdviceConnect financial tools:

While this is all very exciting and has raised much discussion about the level of advice being offered; how this fits with approved product lists; and whether the ‘war’ between industry super funds and advisers is over?

I can’t help thinking that industry super funds are still focused on full-service and face-to-face advice when the majority of their members need lower cost advice alternatives. This new panel will probably only service a small minority of AustralianSuper’s 1.75 million members.

When are we going to break ground on the low-cost advice alternatives of phone and web based advice for the rest of the market?

As a low cost advice platform provider AdviceConnect is obviously pleased at the growing trend of low-cost intra-fund advice models. But of course, the level of ‘real’ advice they offer is so restricted it is rendered fairly useless.

The top 10-15% of AustralianSuper members will be happy with the new panel if it gives them access to independent fee-based advice, but the other 85% still don’t have any options for simple, low-cost financial advice.

The truth of course is that the bottom 85% of the market is in more need of real financial advice than the top 15% so these new advice models are not really that exciting for the average family…just yet.

The article starts…

Despite evidence showing increasing consumer demand for Internet and phone-based simple financial advice outside of super, the industry seems to be moving at a snail’s pace towards making such services available to clients.

According to AdviceConnect chief executive officer Mike Giles, cost and compliance issues, as well as the time it takes to train advisers to give limited advice, may also prove to be obstacles.

Read the whole article here