Lifespan launches digital tool for mass market

Privately-owned financial planning firm, Lifespan Financial Planning has launched its new digital investing and education tool to help address the advice gap, targeting the mass market of Australians priced out from receiving holistic personal advice from a financial planner.

The Lifespan Invest solution, which would be provided via a partnership with Melbourne-based fintech platform OpenInvest, would be a digital solution for those seeking professional assistance at a level below personal advice and would offer the investment portfolio professionally managed for those who sign up for the tool by Lifespan as well as an access to regular financial literacy and educational content in the form of articles and videos.

Lifespan’s chief executive, Eugene Ardino, called on the financial advice industry to look to new technologies to better address mainstream Australia and stressed that the use of ‘robust and compliant new technologies’ was a way to tackle the growing advice gap problem.

“Our advisers are now able to offer an alternative digital solution for those whose circumstances are such that they do not need to go through the more expensive personal advice process. When they do need that service, our advisers will be there for them,” he said.

The firm also said that with the numbers of advisers shrinking every year, the digital technologies were a solution to that problem, but he said it would be “up to the industry to embrace these new technologies”.

According to OpenInvest’s chief executive and co-founder, Andrew Varlamos, the current advice gap could be solved only by a combination of scalable technology and progressive financial advice firms working in partnership.

“And because the banks have all exited financial advice – unless you’re extremely wealthy – it leaves an even larger vacuum that unfortunately has been filled with a spate of gimmicky trading apps that encourage people, especially young people, to gamble via share trading or crypto. Not only does this pose excessive risk of financial loss, but it also comes with inevitable mental anxiety and stress,” Ardino warned.