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Your Finances Should Be a Bit More Fit

By Adam Pavey 19th May 2016

This article was originally published on Quadrant Group’s website. Quadrant Group was acquired by Progeny in March 2017.

Do you have a Fitbit? If you don’t I’m sure you’ll know someone that does, because more than 40 million Fitbit activity tracking devices have been sold since 2012. And if you think the appetite for this wearable technology is slowing down, over half were purchased in the past year. That’s a lot of people intent on improving their physical health. Understanding the amount of exercise you’ve done, how much sleep you’ve had, how many calories you’ve burnt and how all of that affects your heart rate and other personal metrics can make it easier to lead a healthy lifestyle. Simply put, a Fitbit should make you a bit more fit.

But what about your financial fitness? If you understand your risk profile, have well-defined goals and have access to your all your financial data ‘at a glance’ will it make you a healthier investor?

Giving our clients a healthy alternative to the often burdensome worry associated with managing wealth has always been at the heart of Quadrant Group. We understand the importance of planning investments to work for clients, rather than leaving them to feel stressed. By using risk profiling and Lifetime Cash Flow modelling, we offer the data that you need to have a holistic view of your financial wellbeing. In fact, our role of being a good adviser is really more akin to being an investment coach, in helping clients to maintain patience, fortitude and discipline in their investing.

As a wealth manager, it’s amazing to consider all the technological advancements that have changed the financial industry over the past decade. In the last few years we have directed significant investment towards greater efficiencies and improvements in our reporting. We are committed to enhancing our processes and communications. Our day-to-day management requires secure systems with state-of-the-art servers and in June last year, we successfully introduced a new Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system called Intelliflo.

Intelliflo links everything together: investments, pensions, life insurance plans and property, plus it offers significantly improved client reporting. One of its primary functions is to handle valuations and provide ‘one touch’ and historical values online. It allows us to dig deeper into data and highlight the most important information within an investment plan.

Our Wealth Stewardship Report has been redesigned with a better presentation of data that is more visual, with an easy to understand client view that clearly illustrates their investment positions. With this new system, we are able to offer clients a clearer snapshot of all their holdings and drill further into each contract held.

Through the electronic valuation functionality, the values of client policies are updated regularly. It also allows for automated commission and fee payments from insurers to be transacted which is an improvement of our business efficiencies.

Our new system includes an optional Personal Finance Portal (PFP) account which can be linked to personal bank accounts, showing balances and transactional data for the last 6 months. Most of our clients are used to banking online, so to get a view of their financial holding in a secure, online environment would give them an even broader and more accurate picture of their wealth.

At Quadrant, our approach goes beyond traditional financial advice. We aim to help clients to make critical decisions about the future, by understanding them, their values, goals and aspirations. From this we create a financial plan that brings order to their affairs, allowing them to achieve financial freedom. It’s a disciplined process that brings structure to wealth planning and puts a focus on achieving lifestyle goals. The principles of this process have been intrinsic to our company since its inception.

Our Stewardship process is designed to work with clients in an open, transparent and collaborative way. We support our clients to stay on track and achieve their life goals in an ever-changing world. Because financial planning is not a one off event but dynamic and evolving, it requires ongoing advice, counselling and support.

Client feedback led Quadrant to make these changes and will continue to inform how we invest in our business. We hope that these changes, along with regular meetings with your Financial Planner, will help to provide you with financial peace of mind for many years to come.

This article does not constitute financial advice. Individuals must not rely on this information to make a financial or investment decision. Before making any decision, we recommend you consult your financial planner to take into account your particular investment objectives, financial situation and individual needs. Past performance is not a guide to future performance. The value of an investment and the income from it may go down as well as up and investors may not get back the amount originally invested. This document may include forward-looking statements that are based upon our current opinions, expectations and projections.

This article is distributed for educational purposes and should not be considered investment advice or an offer of any security for sale. This article contains the opinions of the author but not necessarily the Firm and does not represent a recommendation of any particular security, strategy or investment product. Information contained herein has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable but is not guaranteed.

Past performance is not indicative of future results and the value of investments can fall as well as rise. No representation is made that the stated results will be replicated.