Retirement Planning

Asset Innovation Award 2009

Branching from the well known Financial Review, Asset Magazine is one of Australia’s leading publications for financial planners and investment professionals. This puts Asset in a great position to recognise the leaders in the financial planning industry. The Asset Innovation Awards are a great opportunity to showcase the financial planning industry’s entrepreneurial and modern spirit. Our focus on innovation is complimentary to Asset’s commitment to identifying the financial planning businesses of the future.

The Asset Innovation Awards for financial planning are conducted in conjunction with The Asset Platform Innovation Awards, judged by Investment Trends; and The Asset Margin Lending Awards and The Asset Risk Awards, judged by Rice Warner.

For the past seven years, Asset has identified organisations that are tackling business challenges head on, coming up with new solutions and forcing new innovations. In August 2009 PlanBiz Financial Services were awarded the Asset Innovation Award. PlanBiz competed against significantly larger financial planning practices nationwide, but managed to take out the honour based on their ability to combine innovation and improvement of their business practices whilst maintaining a personal relationship with their clients.

State Value of Advice Awards – Finalist

The State Value of Advice Awards awarded by AXA and Charter Financial Planning recognises the added value a thorough approach to financial planning can provide.
Throughout Queensland and northern New South Wales all financial planners within the AXA and Charter Financial Planning network were invited to provide one example of how one of their clients’ situations had improved since meeting with a financial planner.

PlanBiz Financial Services provided details of a recent client who had modest retirement savings, was reliant on Centrelink income and was now in their second marriage.

The financial plan PlanBiz laid out a strategy which addressed the following:

• Maximising their Centrelink income.
• Increasing their retirement income
• Limitations of frozen assets (that is, assets which were not currently available for withdrawal)
• How their superannuation and retirement income streams would be dealt with in the event of their death/s
• Ongoing service expectations

The national judging panel judged the presentation of this real case and named PlanBiz Financial Services a finalist for 2010, with the recognition that even with modest retirement savings, the importance of the strategy and structure of the investments continues to play an integral role in improving any person’s financial wellbeing.