Count Financial adds ex Centrepoint consultant

In a statement, Count Financial said it had appointed Henry Cai, who was most recently a technology consultant for Centrepoint Alliance since 2016, as its new licensee systems training and support manager.

Mr Cai, who had also worked as a support analyst at Iress, would assist in the rollout of new digital tools and advice templates that had already generated significant increases in productivity across the group, Count said.

“Count Financial believes that technology-driven initiatives are key to streamlining the advice process, creating efficiencies for advisers and a faster, simpler experience for clients as a result,” the group said.

“Over the past year, Count Financial has delivered a number of digital tools that integrate with its version of Xplan to reduce the time it takes to execute various steps of the advice process. As a result, Count Financial’s member network is delivering more advice than ever before.”

The group said the rollout had delivered a 38 per cent year-on-year increase in advice documents issued in 2020, and up to 50 per cent efficiency gains in the fact-finding process for its advisers.

“We’re always looking at new ways we can improve the advice delivery process and our priority at the moment is to upgrade our advice templates,” Count chief advice officer Andrew Kennedy said.

“So far, we have seen a 30 per cent reduction in pages and a 40 per cent reduction in the overall word count within our statements of advice. This saves time for our advisers and makes advice documents shorter and easier to understand for our clients.”

Mr Cai said he was looking forward to assisting Count’s adviser force to embed the new tools into their business.

“Count Financial has a reputation for being a forward-thinking business and they know that technology will play an important role for advice firms in the future,” Mr Cai said.

“I’m very pleased to be on board so I can bring our new solutions to life and help advisers all over Australia.”