Health Super to use licence to parent other funds

Health Super is keen to attract other funds to use its licence in the same way Equipsuper has done in establishing its new financial planning service.

Manager of Health Super financial planning, Andrew Vogt, said the fund was keen to join forces with like-minded organisations and was talking to other funds “all the time”. Health Super Financial Services has strategic plans in terms of the growth of the business, but Vogt said getting the right fit was more important than measures such as the number of advisers employed or funds under advice. For Health Super, which receives a fee for the use of its licence, partnering with other funds enables it to benefit from economies of scale and keep the costs of advice down. “It also assists in allowing people around Australia to be able to speak with an industry fund-employed, fee-for-service financial planner,” he said. “;We are keen to attract more funds to use our licence on the strict proviso it is not just anyone, we have firm views of what the member’s experience of financial planning should be.”; For Equipsuper, using Health Super’s licence enables it to offer financial planning to its members quicker than if it had to go through its own licencing process. Equipsuper financial planning is wholly owned by Equipsuper, and a corporate authorised representative of Health Super Financial Services, and will employee its own advisers. Vogt said the Health Super financial planning business, which uses Xplan’s financial planning software and offers a variety of external products, employed six salaried advisers which saw between 1,500 and 2,000 members of Health Super each year.