Welcome to the Mclowd Practitioner Update.
Bonds and cash are the safe haven assets for (people who are already retired, or are close to retirement) and returns on these have been dismal and are expected to remain subdued in what has become known as the ‘lower for longer’ environment.
How to deal with retirement anxiety, AFR January 18th
Introduction
The Community starts the new year with a growing body of Practitioner users. (More than 800 are in receipt of this update, although for now only a minority of those are actively using the software).
As a consequence of the efforts of the Development Team, more recent Members are having a much easier time migrating to and managing funds on Mclowd.
Speaking of his experience over the last few months, Practitioner Mark Gibbons had this to say:
“I recently moved a number of clients across to Mclowd from one of the large wholesale administration firms.
These are simple funds whose assets and income can no longer support the cost structure associated with firms of that size.
The technology that Mclowd has created has allowed me to drive out unnecessary costs by insourcing the administration function, including:
- Automated bank data feeds from Macquarie
- The ability to collaborate online with staff and clients
While no one is sugar-coating the state of play, my clients will see immediate cost savings from this move, thereby improving:
- Retirement outcomes
- The strength of my relationship with those clients
As we start a new year I encourage other SMSF Professionals to consider which of their client funds might also be suitable for Mclowd.”
Recent Deliverables
Reflecting the importance of fund migration, we have recently upgraded this process, making the interface and workflow more intuitive.
This project is a good proxy for our development efforts moving forward.
With many elements of the core functionality now in place, we can steadily work through:
- Improvements to usability
- The automation of residual manual processes, including greater leverage of third party data sources
(The upgrade to member payments processing – which goes live later this week – being another example).
The inevitable result of these efforts will be the gradual erosion of pricing power amongst incumbent vendors, to the benefit of all SMSF Professionals and their clients.
Introductory Webinar
Prospective users are welcome to join our next Introductory Webinar on Wednesday February 19th at 12:30pm AEDT.
Conclusion
A significant proportion of SMSF Trustees are approaching (if not already in) retirement.
As their asset allocation shifts (as described in the above AFR article), those self-funded retirees will move from the macroeconomic fiction of artificially inflated asset prices, to the macroeconomic reality of ‘lower for longer’ yields.
Provided the technology platform continues to evolve, this demographic shift will provide the Mclowd Community and its stakeholders with a microeconomic tailwind for many years to come.
Regards
Ashley Porter
Managing Director
Mclowd Pty Ltd