Subsequent to its launch on 3 June, SMSF administration platform provider CleverSuper has experienced significant interest from financial planners servicing clients in the sector.
“I’ve only really done what I consider the soft launch to the industry to let it know what I was doing. My original intention was to do it out of courtesy and to recruit some partners and provide them with our direct leads,” Custom Wealth Solutions principal Chris Appleyard told selfmanagedsuper.
“But what’s happened is every institution has contacted me for a demonstration in relation to this service and how they may actually look to integrate it or deliver it throughout their own institutional clients and direct consumers. Some other intermediaries and larger operations have also expressed their interest in the demonstrations and some consolidations of their own accounts.
“We’ve also had over 650 applications and registrations for the affiliate partnership program when I only called for 250 and that was in one week.”
According to Appleyard, three critical components were driving the level of interest so far, the first being the flat-fee pricing of $79 per month.
“We’re literally a quarter of the cost end-to-end compared to anybody else because by the time you deliver an audit solution, and by the time you look at the set up and other bits and pieces, it doesn’t matter who you are, you’re at $3000 or $4000,” he said.
“We’re free to set up, the only thing you’ve got to pay for is the ASIC charge that no one can negate and then it’s $79 a month. So $948 per year is absolutely unbeatable.”
The technology involved is also an attraction as is the fact Appleyard is giving away all of his SMSF leads for scale generation.
He said the CleverSuper offering was established to make SMSFs accessible to a larger number of Australians.
“A lot of people’s super balances sit between $50,000 and $200,000 and SMSFs have either been inaccessible, too complicated or too expensive for them. I’ve taken away all of that,” he said.
“You can run it like an industry fund if you want to, but have unlimited choice on how you choose to run your investments.”
“The best the ATO (Australian Taxation Office) could come out with was that SMSFs were too expensive unless you’ve got a super balance of $150,000 or $200,000. Well now it’s not.”
