Why I use North - Nicholaus Benson of KNR Investments

In our second 'Why I use North' interview with leading advisers, we caught up with Nicholaus Benson, a financial adviser with KNR Investments in Brisbane.

With more than six years' experience in financial services, Nicholaus is committed to delivering exceptional service to clients. Nicholaus specialises in investment planning, superannuation, retirement planning and insurance.

Outside work, he enjoys spending time with his family, working on his garden and renovating his home. We asked Nicholaus about why he chooses North. Here's what he had to say.

What was your first experience with North?

I first started using North to implement relatively simple strategies with single investments that tended to be passive and indexed. That’s all changed.

As an independent adviser group, we’re always crying out for more investment options and North has been delivering.  

What’s been your best client outcome with North? 

Transitioning to retirement with some other platforms can get a bit messy. You need to sell down individual assets and there’s uncertainty about what clients are going to get.  

With North I know that if clients need $1,000, they’re going to get $1,000 and they’re going to get it that day. 

What’s your favourite North feature? 

North excels as a retirement platform and the new MyNorth Lifetime accounts are extremely competitive. 

I believe the MyNorth Lifetime Income account is going to be a gamechanger as it maximises the benefits for clients going into retirement. There’s nothing else quite like it on the market. It really makes North stand out from the crowd and should deliver a tangible difference to client outcomes in 20 years’ time. 

What are the top three reasons you choose North? 

Functionality, process and structure.  

North excels because a lot of the control and decision making is adviser driven. Everything is initiated and approved through the platform. 

Reliability is key. It’s not OK for a platform to go down so you can’t service 300 clients until the next day.

We need to be able to rely on a platform and North just works. 

What’s North’s biggest timesaver?

The fact SuperStream is automated and hard coded into North is a big advantage compared with other platforms that only have manual entry, which means full rollovers.  

When you have up to 250 clients with full rollovers every week, it can create a lot of administration. 

How do North’s support team help you get things done?  

When everything works and A plus B equals C, then happy days. But when things go wrong, consistency is key. The North support team is consistently exceptional, day in, day out. 

They’re knowledgeable, they come back with results and they’re easy to work with. 

Then you’ve got the TapIn technical support team.

It’s quite unusual to have access to experienced professionals like TapIn and it’s something we don’t take for granted. We know the value they bring. 

Would you recommend North?

Yes.  

While other platforms might offer similar features, the way North connects accumulation and pension products stands out because of the ownership structure. I can open a pension account and have the assets transferred across instantaneously. 

What would you like to see from North in the future? 

An even wider range of investment options.

Over the past couple of years, North’s investment universe has exploded with the addition of direct equities, ETFs and managed portfolios. 

How has North helped you achieve your business goals?

Using North has meant stability, peace of mind and control. 

You’re not waiting around for a tech processing team or an email to get sent out.  

With North, everything works and it’s at your fingertips.

What advice would you give to advisers using North for the first time?

You need a platform that performs so you can perform your role. North is simple, straightforward and frees you up to do what you do.