Whether chasing the pink dollar, green dollar or grey dollar, niche financial planning is booming.
Whether chasing the pink dollar, green dollar or grey dollar, niche financial planning is booming.
In the past month alone, two new financial planning groups have been launched with the express aim of targeting specific niche markets.
In what is believed to be a first in financial services, Mark Grady has offi-cially launched Sydney-based planning group Gay Finanz Management, which is tar-geting the gay, lesbian, transgender and bisexual community.
The group, which offers the full range of planning services, recently launched at Sydney’s Gay & Lesbian Expo. In the weeks following the Expo, it has already attracted $5 million of clients’ funds.
Gay Finanz Management already has seven staff on board and is in the process of recruiting more.
The venture is not Grady’s first foray into targeting niche markets. His other planning venture, The Finmark Group, is actively targeting both the immigrant and deaf communities.
Gay Finanz Management hopes to strike a deal to distribute G & L Insurance Bro-kers’ products to its clients and will embark upon a marketing campaign target-ing the gay media and next February’s Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras. It is also hoping to establish a gay superannuation fund, possibly a master trust.
As part of its effort to appeal to the market, the group will donate 15 per cent of all fees and commissions to the charity of its clients’ choice.
“We’re not there to make a buck out of the gay market, but to be seen as putting back in,” Grady says.
On the other end of the spectrum is the Glebe Group. A subsidiary of the Angli-can Church Diocese of Sydney, it has announced the roll out of its own financial planning division to operate under the Glebe Asset Management banner.
The new planning division will concentrate on ethical investments, reflecting the Christian parentage of the company. Principal consultant Steven Poucher pre-dicts huge growth in ethical investing over the next few years.
The planning division has been launched from the ground and so far staff levels number five, however the group plans to expand to five planners in the next 18 months.
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