Investment Trends’ survey of 892 financial planners found 88 per cent of respondents were looking for ways to improve the integration of their systems.
The 2015 Planner Technology Report also noted 43 per cent of planners are willing to use costly solutions such as platforms or software tools to have their integration needs met.
Commenting on the findings, Investment Trends head of research for wealth management Recep Peker said integration is causing daily “friction” for planners.
“Any improvements towards alleviating this are likely to be well received by financial planners,” Mr Peker said.
“The largest integration opportunity is through streamlining the platform account opening process from planning software.”
Investment Trends added that platform and software providers have the opportunity to work closer together to improve integration
However, Midwinter managing director Julian Plummer told InvestorDaily the ability for planners to integrate systems has definitely improved that in previous years.
“I think what we are seeing is the need to control the whole of the value chain has gone down,” Mr Plummer said.
“[We] are seeing a lot more best of breeds systems coming up and they will concentrate on what they are best at and then they integrate them instead of one system that has to do that whole lot.”
Investment Trends also found that among planning software providers, Midwinter achieved the highest overall satisfaction from its users.
While AdviserLogic ranked second among financial planners, the research house noted that the software provider registered the largest increase in planner satisfaction between 2014 and 2015.
Coming in third for overall adviser satisfaction was AdviserNetgain.
Also included within the report were Decimal, XPLAN and COIN.
