Professional Investment Services and IRESS have successfully implemented XPLAN as a white-label Future of Financial Advice (FOFA) compliant solution for the Professional Investment Services network.

The Professional Investment Services-branded COMPASS platform delivers the breadth of functionality of XPLAN for advisers, with the backend support for Professional Investment Services to manage remuneration and effective oversight post FOFA.

Tizzy Vigilante, IRESS Executive General Manager Wealth Management, said IRESS has worked side-by-side with Professional Investment Services to deliver an advice platform that not only enables Professional Investment Services and its advisers to meet the new FOFA obligations, but that also significantly improves functionality and workflow.

"While Professional Investment Services has used XPLAN as a core solution since 2008, many practices in their network were using a variety of legacy systems,Ms Vigilante said. "The challenge was to transition those businesses looking to benefit from the services being provided by Professional Investment Services through technology and access scale benefits.

Professional Investment Services Chief Information Officer, Salim Jahshan, said the decision to partner with IRESS was driven by IRESS' ability to deliver an integrated single solution across the Professional Investment Services business, which has advice, small business, and licensee needs. "Across our business, client data is now stored in one location, which means advisers aren't duplicating information or trying to get systems that aren't made to talk to each other to talk to each other,he said.

While Professional Investment Services' advisers aren't obliged to use COMPASS, Mr Jahshan said he believes the system will be extremely attractive to them. "Working with IRESS we now have a FOFA compliant system, which has been customised to meet the needs of our advisers and their practices. The majority of our practices are now using COMPASS and we believe it is very compelling for all.

"In terms of the implementation and management of the project, our focus has been on making the transition as seamless as possible for our advisers. IRESS has the specialist knowledge and resources to help us with what was a huge change management and communication project,Mr Jahshan said.

When looking for a technology partner, Mr Jahshan said Professional Investment Services took a strategic approach. "We didn't go about comparing one calculator against another, for example, that's not what it was about for us. We very much took a strategic view focusing on what we needed the technology to deliver and what would offer the most value over the longer term to our network and at that level IRESS is miles in front.

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