In a win for the Australian financial advice industry, Sydney-based financial software company Moneysoft has turned on open banking data feeds for its industry-leading client engagement software that is used by more than 250 financial advisers, mortgage brokers and money coaches across Australia.

Moneysoft is working with accredited data recipient Envestnet® | Yodlee® to access open banking data under Australia’s Consumer Data Right (CDR). 

At no extra cost, consumers and their professional advisers will now benefit from live information coming into Moneysoft’s personal financial management tool via open banking’s secure APIs. For financial advisers, this makes the process of gathering client information more streamlined and efficient, with accurate and timely data coming directly from open banking feeds, governed by the CDR’s revocable consent process and privacy rules. 

Jon Shaw, CEO at Moneysoft, said: “As an innovative technology company focused on serving the highly regulated financial advice industry, Moneysoft is excited to make this industry-leading shift to open banking as a primary source of information. Open banking is a government-regulated method of data collection and sharing that is safe, reliable and standardised. Moreover, it supports the use of electronically delivered bank account data to build end-to-end customer journeys that solve problems in real-time, to help Australians budget, build wealth and save for their retirement.”

Moneysoft is part of Link Administration Holdings Limited (“Link Group”) (ASX: LNK) which connects people with their assets including equities, pensions and superannuation, investments, property and other financial assets.

In response to the recent Australian government announcement that superannuation funds should play a central role in the provision of financial advice, many funds are preparing to expand their member advice services.  

Dee McGrath, CEO Retirement & Superannuation Solutions at Link Group, said: “Superannuation funds have traditionally been wary of the risks associated with web-based methods of data sharing. This proactive move by Moneysoft to use open banking removes a major barrier for those funds. It allows them to adopt an innovative technology solution that supports the delivery of quality financial advice, so Australians can have confidence in their retirement outcomes.”

Moneysoft’s software has an essential focus on financial wellbeing by prioritising cash flow management and wealth tracking. The starting point is to understand the consumer’s income and expenditure patterns, assets and liabilities. This requires access to bank transactions, which are run through an analytics program to generate insights. 

Tim Poskitt, A/NZ Country Manager at Envestnet | Yodlee, said: “Financial advice is a great use case for open banking data and analytics. We are delighted to be working with Moneysoft to support proactive innovation for the financial advice industry, including advice provided by superannuation funds to their members. Technology that interfaces with open banking can support advisers to become more efficient in data management and streamline the delivery of their client services.”

The Moneysoft and Envestnet | Yodlee teams collaborated to arrive at an innovative combination of CDR Representative and Trusted Adviser models to support Moneysoft’s B2B2C business model. In this solution, the consumer consents to the Moneysoft platform collecting open banking data as a CDR Representative. Then it is shared with their professional adviser as a Trusted Adviser.  

“Thanks to Envestnet | Yodlee, Moneysoft has brought to market a great solution for consumers and their financial advisers to access open banking data at no extra cost,” said Mr Shaw.