Four platform improvements we delivered for you in September

Your experience is at the centre of everything we do. Our teams have been busy listening to feedback and delivering improvements to ensure we’re continually evolving with your practices. 

Here are four of our latest platform enhancements, implemented on September 4th:

1. NEW: Access Sandstone Insights via North

We recognise the significant challenge the compliance burden ​poses to you and your business, and the criticality of product research when preparing your advice.

We’ve proudly partnered with Sandstone Insights to provide you with seamless, unique access to institutional-quality equities research, insights, and practical stock ideas.

Access independent and institutional research reports, Buy, Hold and Sell recommendations on individual stocks, corporate action recommendations, webinars and video content, market commentary, and timely updates in response to market events, at no extra cost.  

Find out more in the following video: 

2. Digital consent – now extended to bank details

Efficient and intuitive experiences are what our users have come to expect of North and we strive to deliver.

North’s digital consent journey started last year with the introduction of digital consent for advice fees and we’re now extending this to bank details.

“We’ve benefited greatly from North’s digital consent process. It’s freed up a lot of resources and helped us enormously.” – Anthony Jury, Financial adviser, Anthony Jury & Associates 

You’ll now be able to enter bank details directly into North Online and this will initiate a digital consent request to the client for approval – a smoother process, for you and them. 

This will save you time, whilst still maintaining security which is important for everyone. You'll be able to track how your request is progressing via North Online’s Activity Management, Adviser Reporting and subscribing to Event Alerts.

3. New functionality on the North Platform to help advisers set advice fee cap for IDPS

We’re continuing to enhance the functionality in the North Platform to provide more flexibility in helping you set the advice fee.  

Last month, the North Platform introduced a functionality to set an advice fee cap for MyNorth and North Super and Pension and this month we’ve extended this to MyNorth and North Investment IDPS. 

If you use percentage-based fees this means you now have the option to set an upper limit for any fixed term or ongoing advice fees on the North Platform for all your clients’ accounts. This will assist you in applying appropriate fee constraints and help address the issue around clients who are concerned with high fees to obtain financial advice.

4.  ROA template enhancement

We continue to receive positive feedback from advisers we speak with, on the ROA input document which is being downloaded over 25% of the time when a Switch of investment product is performed for North clients. And according to independent consultant NMG, North’s ROA functionality was ranked in first place in NMG’s Australian Adviser Insights Programme for 2022.

To increase efficiencies when preparing advice, we have made minor enhancements to the ROA input document introduction pages. This has the objective of providing you the ability to highlight reasons and things to consider regarding investment portfolio changes. 

If you have any questions on these changes, or further feedback for our team, please contact your BDM.