ASAP chief executive Jim Hennington said he expects the scope of advice that’s provided by automated advice providers to SMSFs will further expand over the next year.
“At the moment, [it’s] very much focused on the transactions that accountants tend to get deeply involved with such as establishing an SMSF, purchasing property and LRBAs, and setting up SMSF pensions,” said Mr Hennington.
He expects that automated advice will soon expand beyond this, however, into services such as retirement advice.
“Over time automated advice could extend into what I call retirement adequacy advice, which will answer questions such as: Am I contributing enough? Have I got enough to retire? How much can I afford to spend in retirement?” he said.
“There are a lot of surveys that demonstrate clients have unmet advice needs in that area.”
Mr Hennington said his automated advice platform has also been seeing increased demand from clients looking to wind up their SMSFs.
“Obviously accountants get involved with that but if the accountant hasn’t got a licence, then they refer to us to do the financial product piece in terms of making sure that’s a suitable idea given the client’s circumstances,” he said.
