YBR announces another acquisition

YBR says its acquisition of direct-to-consumer superannuation business brightday is the next step in the delivery of the group’s digital plans, following the release of Guru in the 2014-15 and My YBR Account in 2015-16.

“Giving customers superior digital access and tools for investments and superannuation is an important tactic in building our wealth volumes,” YBR executive chairman Mark Bouris said in an ASX update yesterday.

“We have already seen great engagement through Guru, our robo-advice tool [and] brightday is the next enhancement.”

Mr Bouris said the common partnership that YBR and brightday have with OneVue, an independent investment software platform, allows for logical and simple integration.

“This acquisition is a key part of our direct and online strategy to be launched to consumers in 2016-17,” he said.

“Brightday serves a similar customer segment to Yellow Brick Road. Our 2020 customer strategy ensures we can serve customers via the means and channel they prefer.

“Many will prefer face-to-face support, which is why we will double our branch network by 2020, while others have a bias towards direct-digital product, and the majority will seek a blend of both. The acquisition of brightday helps enable this.”

Mr Bouris said YBR’s brand awareness through its consistent investment in consumer-facing advertising over the last five years is already yielding direct inquiries from many customers about insurance, as well as funds management and superannuation.

“This digital push is focused first and foremost on accelerating our wealth business growth,” he said.

“We want 30 per cent of our customers accessing our wealth services by 2020. Wealth is a real differentiator for us and a major focus over the next four years.”

[Related: YBR spends big on ‘major market-share push]