A new MDAGuru is making us better! We welcome Stuart Holdsworth to our team!

It is with great pleasure that we get to welcome and add another professional to our team here at MDAGuru. When we add somebody to our team it is because there is a niche area with regards to Managed Accounts that we believe they can fill. They also must share the same core values and principles that our team here at MDAGuru have already instituted. Stuart Holdsworth fits all of the above and goes beyond! His core strengths and principles will help us to lift MDAGuru into a service better prepared to help us in helping our clients to achieve their goals.

A little about Stuart.

Stuart has combined his extensive investment industry experience to become one of Australia’s thought leaders on managed accounts. Stuart is passionate about the growing consumer influences on the investment industry globally, and with Financial Simplicity, has helped enable over $30Bn in a myriad of managed account propositions (SMA, IMA, MDA, UMA) both here in Australia and internationally. Stuart is the CEO and Director of Investment Proposition Innovation of Financial Simplicity, a member of the RegTech Association, and also a founder of the Institute of Managed Account Providers in Australia.

Many of our adviser/dealer clients that come to us do not want to run one size fits all models usually offered via SMAs on platforms and feel their managed account solution requires both the flexibility of a tailored made portfolio combined with ease of operations. Compliance is also on the forefront of their concerns. SMAs on platforms while providing ease of operations and may be less taxing compliance wise from the adviser/dealer point of view cannot provide the flexibility of an Individually Managed Account (IMA) combined with an MDA. The biggest challenge, especially for larger groups with multiple advisers is at the compliance end of things when it comes to the IMA/MDA business model. In essence the AFSL is acting like a Responsible Entity (RE) for each MDA client contract. Regulated Platforms could not possibly go down this route. The dilemma is; How do you provide a robust compliant MDA/IMA solution that can monitor various and multiple IMA models?

When Stuart created Financial Simplicity, he had the foresight to see where the industry was heading and started to develop the Financial Simplicity digital platform to address the above dilemma accordingly.

A little about Financial Simplicity.

Financial Simplicity is a specialist digital platform delivering repeatable processes for tailored, client centric investment portfolio propositions. For investment professionals that are finding that their performance is impacted by the time it’s taking to do portfolio reviews, Financial Simplicity enables them to service their clients with efficiency and scale.

Financial Simplicity was founded on the strong beliefs and vision that the only long-term sustainable business model for wealth managers is to put their client’s interests and relationships first, blending in their firms’ unique values, interests, perspectives and opinions, often in the form of an MDA service.

Since 2003 Financial Simplicity have researched and finessed a range of portfolio service delivery and ‘portfolio actuarial’ services that are embodied in a digital platform that help wealth management firms monitor and make decisions on, their client investor portfolios (advisory or discretionary). By doing such they help their clients enhance their value to their investor clients, increase the value of their businesses, and better satisfy those who oversee them.

Stuart is also the author of an excellent White Paper on IMA’s and why they are the right solution for right now. Please follow the link for a great read on the topic.

https://financialsimplicity.lpages.co/why-individually-managed-accounts-are-right/

 We are very excited to add Stuart to the team and please feel free to contact us at www.mdaguru.com.au if you would like to know more as to how Stuart and the rest of the Gurus can help you put together a sound and compliant MDA business solution.