How to build a wealth platform for modern advisers

Financial advisers played an integral role in the development of CFS Edge. Their time and experience has helped deliver a competitive platform offering at a critical time for the industry, writes Colonial First State Superannuation CEO Kelly Power.  

Colonial First State (CFS) is one of the largest platform providers in the country and responsible for 14% of almost $1 trillion platform market across superannuation and investments.*

Our new platform, CFS Edge, is one of the most significant innovations in the Australian wealth market in the past decade. It will deliver a leading experience for advisers and their clients with an integrated advice solution.

It took 18 months to bring CFS Edge to market, from inception to launch, and it is a major milestone for Colonial First State (CFS) as a standalone business. 

We started with a blank canvas when we set out on the journey to create a new wealth management platform. Every option was considered, from what we could buy domestically, what we could import globally, to what we could build.

We looked at every platform currently available in Australia as well as leading platforms overseas. We considered local and global trends, as well as the architecture, the technology that underpins them, and the current and future needs of advisers.  We concluded that we needed a modular, Cloud-first and open architecture platform that can be tailored to the needs and operating model of individual advisers and practices.

To bring this vision to life we chose to partner with FNZ, a global leader in wealth management platform technology. They administer over $2.2 trillion in client assets and partner with over 650 of the world’s leading financial institutions and over 8,000 wealth management firms. Importantly, they have a proven track record of delivering market-leading platforms globally for advice businesses.

With these objectives in mind, it was clear that to get the design right we would need to partner with a diverse group of advisers. From sole operators to large practices and professionals serving metro and regional communities across the country, our plan was to create a platform inspired directly by the experiences of today’s financial advice professionals. 

Over 90 advisers and specialist support staff across 14 practices along with input from major advice licensees helped shape our approach, priorities, and the design of CFS Edge. Extensive testing across multiple dimensions was conducted, with their feedback instrumental to the final product.  

The overarching message from these advisers was clear: they wanted a platform that could adapt to meet the unique needs of their business and the clients they support. Every advice business is different, with different value propositions, operating models, processes and client experiences. 

The platform integrates into advice businesses through features like personalisation of menus, screens and reports, two-way integration into advice technology, and tailoring of processes and notifications. Universally what we heard from all advisers is that they wanted a platform that could lower the cost of serving a client, increase efficiency and ultimately reduce the amount of time they spend on the platform.  Every minute that an adviser spends on a platform is less time with their clients. 

Advisers across Australia now have a platform that they can personalise to work the way that suits them, including the menu of tools available, what dashboards they see, the fields of data captured in reports or their preferences for workflows and notifications. 

Work items and service requests can be tracked in real time, and preferences can be set for alerts and notifications. Advisers and clients will always know exactly where every item is at, who it is sitting with, and can be sure that the system is following up when needed.

The platform has been designed to provide advisers with predictive insights and alerts, enabling them to see new advice and growth opportunities, highlight areas of inefficiency and pre-empt potential issues for their clients. 

These insights can be benchmarked against peers in Australia and globally and can be tailored to different roles including licensee, business owner, adviser, or support staff. 

We’ll continue extending our integration to other advice tech systems, expanding analytics and insights, and rapidly responding to adviser feedback. 

The quality of the platform and our service experience is paramount.  We have undertaken extensive market testing at every stage and are delighted that CFS Edge is now available to advisers across Australia. 

_{* Platforms' Reported Funds Under Management decreased by $19.5bn over the year to March 2023 — PFL Research}