Mr Wilson told InvestorDaily that historically, financial institutions have controlled client data and only a proportion is given back to the clients, for example via reports.
However, in the age of the smartphone, tablets and the internet-savvy consumer, clients – particularly the younger generation – now expect functionality in the wealth space to keep pace with what they are accustomed to in other sectors.
“Consumers will demand access to their data, and the ability to push their data where they want to send it,” Wilson said. “If they don’t, then they’ll find alternative providers.”
Consumers are also holding financial services technology providers to higher standards based on developments with mobile apps, for example, and are becoming accustomed to a much higher level of functionality, according to Mr Wilson.
“One of the big problems we have in this space is the consumer’s expectation. What we should be able to do for them with respect to IT isn’t set by the financial services industry, it’s set by what they see every time they use a smartphone app, everything they can get for free, the hundreds of thousands of apps,” he said.
“They look at that and think, ‘If I can get that for nothing, why can’t the person I’m paying $3,000 per year to provide financial services provide an equivalent technological capability?’”
However, Australian financial services technology providers have a scale developed based on servicing hundreds of thousands of people, or possibly a few million in the retail banking space, whereas most other mobile technologies cater to a market of tens or hundreds of millions across the world.
“So there’s not the same leverage to throw money at it to get the same results,” Wilson said.
Rubik, which completed its purchase of COIN planning software from Macquarie last year, now has an iPad capability available with an online release due in September and a smartphone release due by the end of this year.
“We’re broadening out access, effectively, and the style of access,” he said.
The iPad capability doesn’t mean reformatting COIN to view it on an iPad, but rather developing a customer-centric deign around how clients and advisers might want to use an iPad, have data concepts demonstrated to them, and how advisers would do that in the field on the fly, he said.
