AMP Advice partners with fintech Frollo

AMP Advice has partnered with fintech Frollo to provide financial advisers, mortgage brokers and their clients with access to Frollo’s Open Banking technology and money management app.

Advisers and brokers in AMP’s network can now select to include Frollo’s Money Management Service as part of their licensee offer and provide their clients with access to a practice-branded version of Frollo’s app.

Clients can then use the technology to create an aggregated view of their financial position and utilise Frollo’s money management capability, including spending visualisations, loan details, budgeting, financial goals and smart insights.

Women’s Index shows gender equality progress slips again

The Financy Women’s Index (FWX), a quarterly measurement of the economic progress of women and timeframes to gender equality in Australia, shows that Australian women’s financial progress weakened for the March quarter amid cost-of-living pressures and that gender financial equality progress has slipped back for the second quarter in a row. Some  key points are:

  • 76.1 points – The FWX slipped 0.1 point in the March quarter 2023.
  • 5.8-year wait for equality in Board leadership – Improvement in the March quarter. Women now account for 36% of ASX 200 board directors.
  • 20-year wait for equality in underemployment – Timeframes increased with less Australian women working to their desired potential in March quarter 2023.
  • 24-year wait for the gender pay gap to close – Unchanged on December quarter 2022.
  • May Budget welcomed on women but still missed opportunities re superannuation on paid parental leave and time targets on gender equality.

Bianca Hartge-Hazelman, founder of Financy, says that: “Given that the gender gap in underemployment rate has widened in an environment of higher interest rates for the past two quarters, the risk is that this is not an aberration and that this may continue, resulting in higher female unemployment and a greater financial strain on women, particularly those on low incomes or single parent families.

“This would be a blow to the financial progress of Australian women and cement the view that they are the shock absorbers of high cost of living pressures, more than men. This could weigh on the annual pace of progress towards gender equality beyond the next June quarter.”

UniSuper invests $1 billion in mobile towers in Europe

UniSuper has secured a 5 per cent indirect stake in leading mobile towers business Vantage Towers.

The AUD $1 billion deal is UniSuper’s first direct unlisted infrastructure investment in Europe, completed after a period of extensive due diligence..

Vantage Towers is one of the leading mobile towers businesses in Europe with a portfolio of over 83,000 sites across ten markets including Germany, Italy, Spain and UK. Its anchor tenant and major shareholder is Vodafone, Europe’s largest mobile network operator.

Sandra Lee, UniSuper’s Head of Private Markets announced the investment which will complement UniSuper’s large infrastructure portfolio including Sydney, Adelaide and Brisbane Airports, Transurban Chesapeake, and a growing allocation to forestry assets.

“This is a high-quality defensive infrastructure investment with strong fundamentals and growth prospects. It adds to UniSuper’s approximately $15 billion private markets portfolio and is positioned to deliver excellent results for our members over the long term. The expected significant growth in data demand underpins our interest in the digital infrastructure sector. At a time of economic uncertainty, we remain cautiously opportunistic, and this is a great example of that approach.”

GBST acquires WealthConnect to expands fintech solutions

GBST, global provider of cloud-based Software as a Service (SaaS) wealth management technology, has announced the acquisition of WealthConnect, a digital advisor practice management, customer relationship management (CRM) and compliance system, based on Salesforce.

Robert DeDominicis, global CEO of GBST said: “We’re excited to welcome the WealthConnect team into the GBST family and connect our wealth management expertise and products with their advisor practice and CRM capabilities. This is the next logical step in our growth.”