Leading global finance technology provider, Iress, has renewed a multi-year agreement with the National Australia Bank (NAB) for ongoing supply of wealth technology to the bank's advice channels.
IRESS Managing Director, Andrew Walsh, said the renewal of the agreement represents an exciting new era in IRESS' relationship with the bank, as it heralds the rollout of XPLAN to the entire NAB and MLC network of over 4,000 users in bank branches and self-employed networks.
The XPLAN rollout, which is expected to take up to 18 months, will commence this month.
Executive General Manager, Advice & Marketing, MLC & NAB Wealth, Richard Nunn, said NAB is focused on offering a combination of services to its advisers which help them to differentiate their services in a competitive market place.
"Our strategic relationship with IRESS, and the commencement of the XPLAN rollout, reflects our continued commitment towards providing our advisers with the best support and technology available," he said. "We have invested at an enterprise level in our next generation technology platform so that advice businesses can continue to lead the marketplace."
As part of the agreement, IRESS' client engagement solution (Engage) has been deployed, built upon the XPLAN advice cloud. Initially, MLC's Plum business will be using Engage to provide scaled advice over the
phone to corporate super members.
IRESS' Mr Walsh said the project demonstrates the flexibility and leverage of the XPLAN platform. "NAB will very effectively access and deliver the XPLAN cloud to its network," he said.
Mr Walsh also said this upgrade of technology comes at an important time for the advice profession. "The regulatory landscape is evolving quickly and technology is central to the opportunities for wealth and advisory businesses, for engagement, cost management and oversight," he said. "We are delighted to renew our strategic partnership with NAB, and look forward to servicing the group's current and future needs via our leading technology solutions."
This announcementrequires no further adjustment to group earnings outlook made at first half results.