Who Is ComCorp?

ComCorp Financial Advice Pty Ltd (“ComCorp”) holds an Australian Financial Service Licence (No. 331367) issued by the Australian Securities & Investment Commission and is responsible for the advice given to clients.

Originally part of a Chartered Accounting firm, ComCorp separated and went out on its own late in 1997. Since that time significant resources have been invested into reinventing the business and positioning it to succeed amidst the challenges of our industry in the future. These challenges are becoming increasingly clear to planners, dealer groups and institutions, and include:

• Increasing competition for clients
• Increasing service demands from clients
• Opportunities and threats from technology
• Need to lock in distribution
• Increasing legislative pressures

Over the past five years we have invested significant time and resources into creating a business and infrastructure that is positioned to succeed amidst the challenges of our industry in the future. Much of what we have done is not conceptually difficult. The challenges lie in actually putting in place the systems and processes while at the same time maintaining high levels of growth and profitability. Our initiatives include:

• Building a corporatised business that is able to deliver a consistent and controlled service
• Attracting and developing strategic partners to take full advantage of growth opportunities in the industry
• Maintaining a profitable business so that we are not dependant on being owned or funded by a major institution
• Restructuring the capital of the business to facilitate equity participation for partners of strategic advantage

We are now supported by referral sources representing over 500,000 potential clients and have the infrastructure in place to support these organisations in a consistent manner. ComCorp has a dynamic and results driven culture and provides high quality advice to clients as well as technical and administrative support to advisers.

The services we offer to financial planners are second to none and our experience has enabled us to provide you with the expertise to deliver a wide range of financial services. Our services include:

• An extensive and flexible approved list of managed funds and administration platforms including Colonial First Choice, Macquarie Wrap and Navigator
• Access to internal and external managed fund and equity research
• Benchmark Technology solutions – Cornerstone Web Technology (CWT)
• Turnkey approach to new business opportunities through our aligned Member based Organisations (MBO’s)
• Ongoing training and professional development
• Paraplanning services with guaranteed service standards
• Advice on Self managed superannuation fund establishment and administration
• Corporate superannuation marketing and support services
• Monthly adviser newsletter covering business development, research, technical and administration issues
• Professional Indemnity insurance
• Standard forms, calculators, client letters and procedures to make your life easy and compliant

A fundamental part of our ability to effectively deliver such a wide-range of services to our financial planners is our Advice Support Team. This section is responsible for the centralised preparation of all our advice, as well as the development of new services. This allows us to ensure that all our services are delivered at a consistently high quality and frees you up from the onerous task of producing financial plans for clients.

A major concern many planners have with external paraplanning services is the time taken to deliver a plan and the quality of the finished product. Our procedures and processes allow you to have complete control over the strategy and investments you recommend to clients, while delivering what you need efficiently.

Staffed by highly qualified professionals, the Advice Support Team is an invaluable resource to financial planners, clients and the group as a whole. A major benefit of the Advice Support Team is the manner in which it helps to distribute intellectual capital throughout the group.

Financial planners are required to adhere to ComCorp’s compliance manual. Audits are conducted each year, one of which is conducted by an external firm. Each planner is likely receive at least one internal audit visit per annum and ComCorp will conduct two ‘desk audits’, which entail reviews of SoAs and client information without the need to visit a planner’s office.

Financial Planners are required to store all SoAs and copies of fact find information on CWT. ComCorp maintains a Register of SoAs and planners are required to complete a monthly certificate listing all SoAs completed during the month.

Planners are required to complete 30 CPD points per annum and educational material completed monthly, or as required, via the Kaplan online training system which is used to help planners meet their CPD requirements.

The Advice Support Team is responsible for the training of planners to meet ASIC requirements. Ongoing training consists of three primary areas:

• Regular interaction via CWT technology and person to person interaction
• Professional development days each year offering technical research, compliance, as well as business and marketing topics.

ComCorp provides a Business Development program to help develop the productivity and success of your business with skill development sessions offering a range of marketing, practice development, business management and sales skills.

The Business Development program has been created to help develop an existing planner’s business at many levels including relationships between planners, lead sources and new business revenue solutions. All business development programs have been designed to maximise available opportunities. The program is tailored to meet each individual planner’s particular requirements, and generally covers:

• A training program and manual that helps lead source staff identify financial planning referral opportunities.
• Face to face training with lead source staff on how to refer.
• Develops a marketing calendar with lead sources which commits to set promotional times and seminars, creating awareness of financial planning to both existing members and new markets.

• Assigns responsibilities for each step in organising seminars
• Ensures feedback is received and analysed
• Ensures that material and presentations from other seminars are utilised where possible, to avoid re-inventing the wheel
• Provides all parties involved in organising and promoting the seminars with feedback

ComCorp are the preferred financial planners for a number of member-based organisations (MBO’s) and we are continually seeking new organisations and or opportunities to provide financial planning services for our preferred network. The longevity of our arrangements with existing organisations is testament to the manner in which we have been able to deliver their particular goals in respect of financial planning, and service their membership. The success of these relationships has been based on:

• Our ownership structure and client focus, which fits with the member based ethos of these organisations
• Our ability to work with these organisations to develop processes and services which deliver a win/win/win/win approach for ourselves, the institution, the client, and planners
• The generation of solid income streams for these organisations
• The consistent positive feedback these organisations have received back from clients about our service

We recognise that every individual and business is different. Our remuneration arrangements are negotiated individually and because of this, we also take into consideration whether we are providing a lead source, whether you have existing clients, and the level of support you require.

ComCorp has invested a great deal of resources, time and money to create a cutting edge customised management system Cornestone Web Technology (CWT) that offers a highly effective and leading practice management and client management solution. The client management system fosters business growth and business effectiveness.

Cornerstone Web Technology (CWT) is at the basis XPLAN with much advancement at all levels and is a web-deployed platform, which aims to increase efficiency, improve client services and reduce costs. XPLAN has established the benchmark for:

XPLAN is a web-deployed system, which aims to increase efficiency, improve client services and reduce costs. XPLAN has established the benchmark for:

• Client management
• Practice management
• Document management
• Portfolio management and research
• Cash flow modelling
• Risk insurance research
• Dealer group and compliance management functionality
• General Business efficiencies

We believe the quality of our offering backed by personal ongoing service makes us different from our competitors, and provides our advisers with an advantage that is based on:

• A corporatised business that is able to deliver consistent and controlled services to you and your clients
• Helping you build your business with our experience, relationships and our lead generation process
• Our ability to work with lead source organisations to develop processes and services – “scoped advice process”
• Back office services supported by our Cornerstone Web Technology (CWT) that free you up to maximise time spent servicing clients and generating new business.