Beyond Ratings: The Company Reshaping Financial Advice Through Data Intelligence

What started as a simple directory and review platform for financial advisers has transformed into a sophisticated data and technology business, helping reshape Australia's financial advice landscape. As Adviser Ratings celebrates its 10-year milestone, the company's evolution reflects the broader transformation of the financial advice profession.

"The genesis of the business was to engage consumers with advisers, connecting consumers with advice through a repository," explains Adviser Ratings founder and Managing Director Angus Woods. "But we quickly discovered opportunities to help address inefficiencies in the broader financial services industry and incrementally help organisations better understand legislation, distribution, and connecting with advisers to better serve consumers."

Building the Foundation

In its early days, Adviser Ratings focused on developing its consumer-facing platform. The company launched with a directory and review system, allowing consumers to rate and review financial advisers - a novel concept at the time that wasn't without controversy. Some advisers were initially sceptical, with Woods recounting early confrontations at industry events. However, the introduction of ASIC's Financial Adviser Register (FAR) helped validate the platform's approach and made maintaining accurate adviser data easier.

By 2015-2016, the company expanded into rating robo-advice solutions, creating comprehensive reviews of digital advice offerings to help consumers navigate the emerging fintech landscape. While this initiative provided valuable insights, the company recognised that its future lay not in being a review platform but in leveraging its growing data assets.

Data-Driven Transformation

The turning point came around 2017-2018 when Adviser Ratings recognised it was sitting on valuable data that could help consumers, advisers, and product manufacturers navigate an increasingly complex regulatory landscape. With the Royal Commission and new Design and Distribution Obligations (DDO) on the horizon, the company positioned itself as a crucial data intermediary.

"We realised we could see the whole ecosystem in a way nobody else could," says Woods. "We weren't just a survey business - we were seeing how advisers used different tools and interacted with them because we had built some ourselves in the past. We had this large network of asset managers, and we understood how each one used data, who did it well, and where the opportunities for improvement lay."

Strategic Acquisitions

This understanding led to strategic acquisitions that broadened the company's capabilities. The purchase of Beddoes brought expertise in life insurance data, while the acquisition of ProductRex added sophisticated product comparison and portfolio construction capabilities. These moves reflected a strategic vision to solve "whole of wealth" challenges through data-driven solutions.

The ProductRex platform, in particular, proved prescient as the industry saw an acceleration in managed accounts adoption following the Royal Commission. The platform's ability to help advisers construct and compare managed account portfolios positioned it well for this industry shift.

Building Network Effects

Its ability to create network effects across the financial services ecosystem sets Adviser Ratings apart today. The company's data lake now encompasses adviser behaviour, product preferences, client engagement patterns, and platform usage information. This comprehensive view allows them to help:

"We've created a network effect through asset managers, advisers, consumers, and licensees all interacting with each other," Woods explains. "We get to see the whole ecosystem, but more than anybody else does, because we're not just collecting survey responses - we're seeing actual behaviors and interactions."

Building Trust Through Data Stewardship

At the heart of Adviser Ratings' success has been its ability to build trust across all stakeholders in the financial advice ecosystem. Advisers who were initially sceptical of a rating platform now regularly share detailed practice information through surveys and actively use tools like ProductRex to enhance their client service. Product manufacturers trust the company with sensitive distribution data to build better products and target them to the right consumers. At the same time, consumers feel confident sharing their experiences through reviews.

"This trust wasn't built overnight," Woods reflects. "It came from consistently demonstrating that while we're collecting and analysing data, we're doing it to make financial advice better for everyone involved. We're not just gathering data for data's sake - we're using it to identify and promote best practices, help manufacturers build better products, and ultimately help more Australians access quality financial advice."

This trust has created a virtuous cycle: better data leads to better insights, which leads to better products and advice delivery, which leads to encouraging more stakeholders to share data. The result is a unique position in the industry where Adviser Ratings can help drive improvements across the entire advice ecosystem while maintaining the confidence of all participants.

Looking Ahead

As Adviser Ratings enters its second decade, the company is positioning itself for its next growth phase. While details of upcoming announcements remain under wraps, Woods hints at expanding their technology solutions and data capabilities to help solve efficiency challenges in advice delivery.

"We've found ourselves in a space that identifies areas for efficiencies in advice," Woods notes. "Data obviously is a precursor to understanding, helping organisations understand things better. And we can help understand things better because that's what we're good at."

The company's evolution mirrors the broader transformation of financial advice from a product-led industry to one increasingly focused on professionalism and efficiency. As the industry grapples with making advice more accessible while maintaining quality, Adviser Ratings' combination of data, technology, and industry knowledge positions it well for the future.

Adviser Ratings' commitment to making the industry more efficient and effective is unwavering. "If our partners and clients are more profitable, then they can serve more customers," Woods concludes. "We're just ultimately trying to help make the industry more efficient and effective."

With new initiatives set to be announced in the new year, Adviser Ratings' journey from a simple directory to a comprehensive data and technology provider demonstrates how focusing on solving industry problems can lead to increased trust and supporting a growing industry as a central partner between consumers, advisers and products. The next chapter promises to build on this foundation to help make quality financial advice more accessible to all Australians.