Snowball on a roll with first client
On-line financial services provider Snowball group has secured its first client, the Retirement Villages Association of Australia (RVAA).
The association has 45,000 village residents, to whom Snowball wants to provide financial advice, according to director Terry Williams. He also sees advice opportunities with the employees of the association's member companies.
The deal is the first by Snowball which opened its doors to the public last month.
It is a portfolio management and financial planning group which aims to run its business around Internet applications such as what the group calls a "virtual wrap".
As part of the deal, Snowball will create a website for RVAA members which only has the association's branding. Williams says it will not be a transaction-driven site, but aims to provide advice and help to creating investment portfolios.
"We are also giving the member the fall-back of talking to an adviser at any time by pressing the panic button that is on the menu," he says.
The site is education-focussed, Williams says. It features investment-modelling tools and plans to have on-line contributions when relevant legislation is passed.
Advice for association members will be provided by CIS Financial Planning, which recently merged with Snowball. It has an advice team of 40 staff and funds under administration of about $430 million.
CIS managing director Max Campbell says advice will come from both the company's advisers and associate company CWM Accountants.
"Accountants will be as much a part of the service as the financial planners," Campbell says.
CIS has had a long association with Sealcorp, which is where most of the senior executives of Snowball originated, and CIS has played a major role in the outsourcing of the Alcatel corporate super business.
The group has offices in Melbourne and Sydney and provides advice to Alcatel's members on a national basis.
Campbell says the company is well-positioned now to handle extra national corporate superannuation business and eventually will look at opening further interstate offices, with Perth probably being the first choice.
CIS is a major client of ASGARD and Snowball's Williams confirmed his group was not planning to move any money out of that master trust.
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