There's something hotting up in the world of adviser software. From the outside it's like a complex chess game played by masters, or perhaps it's more like the game of Battleship, where the big businesses work at taking out the smaller ones until it is their fleet dominating the world of adviser desktops. This week, Iress revealed plans to expand its product range and geographic reach.
It has already announced it will include RiskResearcher on its VisiPlan software. The company has worked at sucking out the best from Proplanner, which it acquired for $15 million last October. It has also revealed its dealer-pay system, CommPay, to adviser desktops, where it is in direct competition with Melbourne-based Dealer Management Systems (DMS), which recently unveiled its commission tracking software, Adviser Online. It allows planners to view the value and progress of their commission payments and apply reporting tools to analyse practice profitability and product providers. Meritum, RetireInvest, Guardian, Bongiornos, Consultum, Capstone, Millennium3 and FSP implemented the product.
Macquarie's Coin Financial Planning Software last week announced it had bought half of South Australian-based back-office supplier Olicc Technologies for an undisclosed sum. Olicc will give Coin access to Comtrac, another reporting software for adviser work-flow systems that allows advisers to see their up-front and trail revenues. According to Coin, the new deal allows it to capitalise on demand from advisers for more control over their commission payments. It's an interesting space in which to compete, but clearly an important one with ground to win.
