UniSuper digital advice launch part of ‘full spectrum of advice’ offering

In an announcement on Thursday, UniSuper revealed plans to launch a new digital advice service in partnership with Ignition Advice, targeting the “missing middle” of members that are not receiving the financial advice they need.

Speaking with ifa, UniSuper head of advice and education Andrew Gregory said the key to the offering is that the super fund can “provide personalisation at scale for our large membership base”.

“More importantly, it’s a capability that integrates with the existing UniSuper advice business, so it works hand in glove with the professionals that sit in UniSuper advice so that we can, I think, improve access and affordability for those that wouldn’t ordinarily take up advice, and we call that group the missing middle,” Gregory said.

The clients that make up the missing middle, he added, are those who want to self-direct their superannuation journey and have simple questions that “come with complex answers that require personal advice”, along with those that simply don’t have the means or ability to pay for comprehensive advice.

UniSuper said there will be no additional cost for what it calls “intrafund journeys” with the cost covered through member fees; however a fee-based proposition for more complex journeys can sit alongside that intrafund advice.

“The affordability challenge is something that’s very much on our mind, because we do see members in a range of spectrums. On one extreme are affluent members that are very well served by the professional advice community, and on the other extreme, for those that don’t have that affluence, they’re well served by social security,” Gregory added.

“But there’s that missing middle, those in the middle that sort of don’t fit on either side, that often still have the same questions around – ‘How do I retire comfortably?’ – but don’t necessarily have access to the professional advice that they may need.”

While these questions around retirement are in dire need of being answered for a large number of Australians, getting this help can be difficult because they “straddle personal advice”.

“What we want to be able to do is provide adequate supply to that demand through a more contemporary advice model, because we realise that the traditional advice model we see today doesn’t scale that well,” he said.

“There will be a supply-demand mismatch if we don’t innovate in ways like this.”

It’s not just this underserved cohort that UniSuper is targeting, with the head of advice explaining that the fund wants to offer the “full spectrum advice”, all the way from simple guidance and education through to “comprehensive advice for complex circumstances”.

“What’s unique with this model is that a member through the digital advice proposition can meet with a colleague at any point during that journey,” Gregory said.

“When you’re dealing with your own financial circumstances, sometimes you need validation, or sometimes you’ve got some questions that you need to work through, and we don’t expect members to be on their own when they’re working through that digital advice process.”

Digital advice is just one way of answering this, he said, with UniSuper “prepared to invest” in employing the new class of adviser if the second tranche of advice reforms are passed.

“We see that opportunity to help improve the supply of advisers in the sector,” Gregory said.

“For us, if that option were to become available, a fund like UniSuper would wrap their arms around that opportunity. We would look to that new class of adviser to support this digital advice engine and to help translate the recommendations that come from that digital advice engine.

“But equally, it would create a pathway and a pipeline of aspiring advisers to move into our professional adviser teams as well. So, we’d be prepared to invest, in fact, we’re really well-equipped to respond if we get that regulatory clarity from the government.”