Basically, the financial planning industry has been well and...

Basically, the financial planning industry has been well and truly 'stuck in the past' for a long time. Its been too easy to earn a lot of money all while offering a very sub-par service (commissions, clients not realising they are even paying fees etc). Due to a historically average service provided by many, there has been plenty of issues within the industry. As a result of this issues and a genuinely low level of public perception, there have been stringent compliance requirements placed on the advisers.

The above has certainly lead to an increased cost of providing the 'average joe' advice. Unless you are working as an adviser (or in a practice), it would be pretty hard to understand how much work goes into being able to provide someone financial advice. I might sit down with someone for 5 minutes and know exactly what I need to do for them but I can't give them advice without doing hours of 'tick the box' compliance work to be able to eventually issue them with a financial plan that may confirm something that could have been explained in a couple of minutes. Important to note that some complex client cases do genuinely take hours of research and modelling before you actually know what needs to be recommended. However, a lot of practices tend to stick to the cookie cutter advice of super and insurance because that is the highest profit margin advice generally speaking.

The industry is definitely at a cost roads particularly with the life insurance framework coming in earlier this year and the upcoming education requirements. There is going to be a huge amount of advisers leaving the industry due to education requirements (good riddance IMO) but I also hope there is a huge crackdown due to the banking royal commission. Ive had the discussion on here before but I personally don't think the bank's issues are cost related, their culture is just broker. Too many 'managers' with their remuneration tied to selling of products. I expect the banks will all slowly leave the industry (as is already happening) as financial planning is no longer the easy loss leader for them to flog their vertically integrated product on consumers.

Regarding whether Intiger is the sole solution, I don't personally believe that. Do I think that really matters, not really. If BOOM2 does what they say it does, as well as they say it does, it should have uptake across the industry enough for this to be a successful company. Many practices won't outsource paraplanning overseas (especially with recent changes to privacy in Feb and possible monetary repurcussions if client information isn't protected). Ive been critical of Integer in the past as sending preplanning overseas doesn't really work, but if they have actually automated the SOA and admin process this should succeed IMO.

Why do I not currently hold? Because I am waiting on confirmation the software is as good as they say it is.