Browne & Co joins Securitor

Accounting firm Browne & Co is establishing a financial planning arm and joining the Securitor dealer network, it announced yesterday.

Phil Browne, principal of Browne & Co, said: “Having outsourced our financial planning for a number of years, we decided that providing the advice in-house and being part of Securitor would deliver a better client outcome”.

“Most of our clients have asked for financial advice at some point and we’ve had to refer them elsewhere,” Browne & Co’s Anna Donaghy told Money Management.

It was this that prompted the firm to offer the service in the form of financial planner Joel Xuerub.

Securitor’s business development consultant Euan Sneyd said it was not unusual for an accounting firm to join the Securitor dealer network.

“In the Sydney Metro area 85 per cent of our members are linked with an accounting practice,” he said.

Sneyd believes that accounting practices are well placed to offer financial advice because of the large numbers of people who see an accountant every year, many of whom need financial planning advice as well.

The process of bringing Brown & Co into the dealer network began a year ago, when it joined the Securitor ‘Business Talk’ program, Sneyd said.

He said the program works with businesses through a five-step program of establishing, growing, maximising, extending and also developing exit strategies.