In December 2016, Infocus won a national tender to partner with H&R Block and provide financial planning advice to H&R Block clients. In May this year, the two firms confirmed they’d be rolling out the partnership nationally in the second half of 2017.
This is now set for expansion to 157 financial advisers in the Infocus network.
“We have a dedicated team managing the referrals, contacting clients and making bookings. We are also looking to grow our financial advice team to service areas that we currently don’t,” a spokesperson for Infocus told Accountants Daily.
Accounting and advice-based firms have typically experienced frictions in formalised referral relationships, which H&R Block’s director of communications Mark Chapman is confident the duo can work around.
“Whilst we can provide tax advice on clients’ various investments (rental properties, capital gains, etc), we can’t provide them with the sort of holistic financial planning advice which would enable us to really help them fully understand their financial situation each year,” Mr Chapman told Accountants Daily.
“So, for us, it was imperative to team up with a firm of financial advisers which could support our offices and the clients in our particular market.
“The boundaries of what constitutes the core services offered by a firm like ours are becoming increasingly blurred as clients expect to be offered value-added services from their trusted advisers so forming a relationship like this made perfect sense.”
