Fin365 aims to strengthen tech services division with mergers

The financial services software provider will merge with Optimised Financial Planning Solutions (OFPS), which specialises in usable and personalised efficiency solutions, and SMSF Paraplanners (SMSFPP), which provides outsourcing services such as client services and paraplanning.

According to Fin365 chief executive Stephen Handley, the initiative is in keeping with its founding mission.

“From inception, Fin365’s mission has been to help financial services businesses deliver high quality financial services to a greater number of customers, by better leveraging technology,” he said.

“Historically our primary focus has been on developing our software platform but, as our customer base grows, we’re increasingly being asked if we can provide additional services such as data cleansing, revenue management, process automation and general technology consulting.”

Mr Handley said the mergers would formalise existing relationships with the businesses.

“SMSF Paraplanners and OFPS each have areas of expertise that complement Fin365. As requests from our customers have become broader, we’ve partnered with both businesses and delivered some great outcomes for our customers.”

“Bringing the combined skills/resources together will allow us to accelerate growth of both capacity and capabilities, meaning we’ll be better positioned to respond to increasing demand.”

SMSFPP managing director Jo Hall said the formation and growth of its software services team was also a result of requests from its existing customer base.

“In speaking with our financial planning practices, whilst they understood the importance of having great data to improve business management and improved productivity, the challenge was getting the data clean to start with,” she said.

“SMSF Paraplanners love [sic] to help, so we built a team to assist practices with technology-based revenue management, workflow management, document coding, bulk and granular data cleansing.

“The transparency and efficiency that our practices have gained has been immense, so we are excited to be able to continue to grow the services we can offer our practices, by merging our software services team into the Fin365 team.”

OFPS founder Tim Reid, who will join Fin365 as head of technology services, said the combined team would fill a gap in financial services.

“In order to thrive, every services business needs to be optimising its use of technology and leveraging data to deliver an exceptional customer experience with optimal business efficiency. In an ideal world, every business should have dedicated staff who perform CTO/business analyst type functions,” he said.

“Unfortunately, this is often not financially practical for even a mid-size financial services firm. But accessing this expertise via a flexible outsourcing model is something that even the smallest firm can afford. I’m really excited to be joining forces with the Fin365 and SMSFPP teams, to build such a unique and compelling service offering.”

The new division will initially offer data services, revenue management, software customisation, dedicated technology support and technology consulting for a broad array of technologies including the full suite of Microsoft technologies, Xplan and a number of other financial planning systems.