Iress has teamed with a local super fund for a new integration designed to “improve adviser efficiency and make it easier for advisers to streamline onboarding of new and existing clients”.
The new integration is made up of the investment software provider’s Xplan financial planning platform and Hostplus’ self-managed invest (SMI) onboarding solution.
Hostplus said the tool will provide advisers using Xplan the ability to “seamlessly initiate, complete and lodge” their investor client’s SMI applications directly from Xplan.
Hostplus’ Group Executive, Paul Watson, said that the ability for advisers to integrate SMI data directly into Xplan, as well as the launch of a new adviser portal, highlights the fund’s ambition to work with advisers and to help to reduce their time-consuming processes.
“We are continuously looking for ways to provide advisers with the products, tools and solutions to help them achieve greater efficiencies across their businesses and to strengthen their service and support for their SMSF clients,” Mr Watson said.
“Together, these form part of a wholistic adviser support structure that we are developing and rolling out to deliver quality service and investment solution outcomes for advisers and their clients.”
Iress’ new partnership comes after the provider called off the divestment of its UK mortgages business.
“We stated at the outset of this divestment process that we would be disciplined both on price and the future owner’s credentials. After a thorough and well-considered process, we have concluded that the best outcome for our shareholders, clients and people is for Iress to retain the business,” Iress chief executive Andrew Walsh said in April.
“The mortgages business continues to perform strongly, contributing £16.1 million of revenue and £6.4 million of NPAT in 2021. In recent months, mortgages has increased its pipeline of opportunities as lenders demand greater scale, efficiency and automation in mortgage processing.
Meanwhile in the same month, Hostplus and Statewide Super announced the finalisation of their merger, resulting in over $81 billion in funds under management (FUM) and 1.5 million members, after signing a successor fund transfer (SFT) deed late last year.
Hostplus CEO David Elia called the merger “another important milestone” for the company.
“Our focus is on continuing to deliver exceptional outcomes for our expanded membership, including market-leading returns – especially from our MySuper Balanced option which is ranked number one for net investment performance over 7, 10, 15 and 20 years,” Mr Elia said.
