BTFG strengthens commitment to Advice

BT Financial Group (BTFG) today announced changes to its Advice division designed to strengthen its focus on providing more Australians with quality advice.

It said the provision of advice, and how consumers want to access it, is rapidly evolving and in recent years it had made significant investments to expand its Advice offer from traditional face to face holistic advice to now cover general and single topic advice, which can be delivered face to face or virtually.

BTFG Chief Executive, Mr Brad Cooper, said BTFG was continuing this evolution by repointing the various components of its existing Advice business, bringing greater focus by matching them with industry leading expertise that already exists in the broader BT business.

The new structure will see:

• Current client facing Advice businesses, whose success depends on developing deep and enduring relationships, moving into a newly created Advice & Private Wealth division. This will leverage the expertise of BT Private Wealth which is recognised as having Australia’s leading Private Wealth Bank based on the strength of its client relationships. The new division will be led by current GM Private Wealth, Ms Jane Watts.
  
  
• Remaining teams, including those that provide digital and phone based general advice, will be moved into BTFG’s award winning customer service areas within the Chief Operating Office (COO), leveraging the COO’s innovation in digital and phone based services. The COO will continue to be led by Mr Andrew Walker.
  

Mr Cooper said Jane and Andrew are passionate about delivering the best possible experience, services and solutions for BT’s customers and had delivered exceptional results in their respective divisions.

“Under Jane’s leadership, BT Private Wealth has become the number one private banking business in Australia and she has previously led Advice teams at some of Australia’s best known Wealth businesses, while Andrew has driven the digital transformation of the business as we continue to make it simpler and easier for customers to do business with us.”

The changes follow August’s announcement of Mr Mark Spiers’ decision to resign as GM Advice. Mark will stay on in a new advisory role supporting BTFG’s wider strategy as Director, Wealth Development.

Jane and Andrew said they were pleased to be able to build on the work Mark Spiers had done in helping to build the professionalism of the industry, and it was a privilege to be able to help more people prepare for their best financial futures at a time when Australians need Advice more than ever.