SFG Australia plans to deploy an enhanced client value proposition across the entire business and will include improved advice offers and new product initiatives, according to its managing director.
"Clients, probably for the first time that I can remember, are actually being more demanding of us and more generally of the industry than we've really been able to cater for," SFG managing director Tony Fenning told InvestorDaily.
The first updated element involves allowing clients to have control over transactions and personal information akin to online banking, Fenning said.
"We're desperately and urgently trying to figure out who to partner with to provide clients with that control," he said.
"We want to facilitate that but in a professional, industrialised and robust way."
The second element of the value proposition seeks to properly segment the business' offerings and allow more choice to clients, particularly within Shadforth Financial Group, Fenning said.
"Historically, financial advisers have tended to have one personal view of their service proposition so what we're trying to help advisers do now is say 'we've done research on this group of clients and they're really interested in this so we're going to provide more of that service to what you're doing'.
"Segmenting the client base and figuring out what services offer a unique level of value is now part of the best advice holy grail."
He said for example, in the area of retiree strategies, the group is determining how far to extend its services and is therefore open-minded to possibly starting up an estate administration division and a legal firm to deliver wills.
SFG also intends to better cater to the wealth accumulating sector through its internal projection tool called FinMod.
FinMod is used in conjunction with a financial adviser and is so far receiving favourable welcome from one large accounting firm, a large law firm and several corporates, Fenning said.
On a product and service level, the group is set to deliver a managed discretionary account-style (MDA) structure and a dynamic portfolio service, which will act as a non-discretionary version, in partnership with Colonial First State.
"We've been working with Colonial [First State] for some time to get an industrialised version. We're still testing but if it's all fine, that'll be a pretty major change. It's a part of the maturing market offer," he said.
There have been small operators running their own versions of MDAs but not at the size and scale SFG is looking for.
The group will announce more news on the initiatives during the first quarter of the new financial year.
