The WealthTech Insider

What if you tried to design the worst possible advice industry on purpose? Pete Worn and Danni Le Grande run Charlie Munger's inversion trick over Australian advice, working through the six rules from Pete's latest Code & Capital : Make sure nobody agrees who the customer is Insert as many ticket-clippers as the law allows Regulate the supply until it collapses Make the living pay for...

Two commencement speakers got booed off stage for telling rooms full of graduates that AI was an exciting opportunity. Danni and Pete start there — Gloria Caulfield, then Eric Schmidt — and ask the more useful question: what happens when the people most certain AI is inevitable are the ones who carry none of the downside? The downside lands somewhere else. On the graduate. On the PY advisers now v...

APRA's late-April letter on AI was addressed to Banks, Insurers and Super Trustees. It wasn't addressed to AFSLs — and Pete Worn reckons that distinction will matter for about six months. In this episode, Danni and Pete unpack Pete's latest Code & Capital on what APRA's AI letter signals for the broader advice industry, and what ASIC is almost certainly preparing in the backgro...

Pete's latest Code & Capital landed in inboxes the week after the federal budget — and his frustration was raw. In this episode, he and Danni unpack what the proposed capital gains changes mean for Australian software founders, and why the advice tech sector is uniquely exposed. CGT effectively doubling to 33–47% (versus 20% in the US, 14% in the UK, zero in New Zealand). A $5M exit going...

Canceling Adobe shouldn't feel like escaping a hostage situation — but it does. Fitness First, Foxtel, gym memberships, subscription perfume (yes, really), and a lot of advice tech vendors share the same playbook: make it easy to sign up, and brutally hard to leave. In this episode, Danni and Pete sit down in person (a rare one) to unpack the latest Code & Capital newsletter — Breaking Up...

Danni went to New Zealand for a week and the AI world lost its mind. Pete catches her up on the news that matters — starting with Anthropic's "Mythos," a model so powerful they refused to release it publicly after it uncovered up to a million vulnerabilities in major software in a matter of days (cue Jurassic Park: "scientists were so obsessed with whether they could, they never...

Mark Zaglas is back. Our most downloaded guest ever returns to go a level deeper on what's changed since last year's "Stagnation to Scale" episode — and a lot has changed. Encore Advisory Group has been acquired by Evidentia, Mark has launched his Big Six Insights series, and the industry is facing an inflection point where the pace of change has doubled but the margin for error...

Pete's latest Code & Capital sparked a big conversation — why are Advice Practices still tempted to rip out their CRM when the data says it rarely ends well? Danni brings the receipts from Finura's Technology Health Check: only 17% of Practices are actually planning to move, barely half use their CRM as a source of truth, and 80% don't even run an RFP when choosing new tech. We als...

In this episode of The WealthTech Insider, Danni Le Grande and Peter Worn unpack a deceptively simple question that opens a much bigger conversation: why do so many AI tools have human — and overwhelmingly female — names? What starts as a light observation quickly turns into a deeper discussion about trust, subconscious design choices, and the risks of anthropomorphising technology in professional...

Most Australians have critically low financial literacy, yet the advice industry is sitting on a golden opportunity to change that—and unlock billions in advice demand. Marcus Field from Iris sheds light on groundbreaking research that reveals the true scale of Australia's financial capability crisis and how a strategic shift in education, regulation, and advice delivery can turn unmet needs into...

In this special episode of The WealthTech Insider, Danni Le Grande and Peter Worn unpack Finura’s official 2026 WealthTech Predictions and discuss what these trends actually mean for Advice businesses on the ground. From the coming AI governance reckoning and the real risks Advisers are underestimating, to the rise of platform oligopolies, shifting Licensee and Managed Account dynamics, and the te...

What does a successful Tech Transformation actually look like inside a growing Advice firm? In this episode of The WealthTech Insider, Danni Le Grande speaks with Simon Backman, CEO of Wahlstrom Financial Services, about the reality behind modernising Advice delivery — from early resistance and change fatigue to measurable time savings and a better client experience. Simon reflects on why Tech sho...

Featuring a new Finura Client: Verse Wealth What happens when you throw out the traditional financial advice playbook — but keep the discipline, compliance and rigour that actually protects clients? In this episode of WealthTech Insider , Peter Worn sits down with Corey Wastle , founder of Verse Wealth , one of Australia’s most quietly radical advice firms. Corey didn’t come up through the usual f...

A short, informal welcome back to 2026. Danni and Pete catch up after the break and run through what’s coming up on The WealthTech Insider this year. #finuragroup #wealthtech #technology #peterworn #dannilegrande

Most Australians have critically low financial literacy, yet the advice industry is sitting on a golden opportunity to change that—and unlock billions in advice demand. Marcus Field from Iris sheds light on groundbreaking research that reveals the true scale of Australia's financial capability crisis and how a strategic shift in education, regulation, and advice delivery can turn unmet needs i...

Most Australians have critically low financial literacy, yet the advice industry is sitting on a golden opportunity to change that—and unlock billions in advice demand. Marcus Field from Iris sheds light on groundbreaking research that reveals the true scale of Australia's financial capability crisis and how a strategic shift in education, regulation, and advice delivery can turn unmet needs i...

In this final episode for 2025, Danni and Pete cut through the noise to review the trends that actually mattered. We look back at our 2025 Predictions with a critical eye—discussing why the AI hype has cooled into "AI fatigue" and why the industry is finally embracing Platform Monogamy. We also explore the rise of "Boring by Design" AI agents , the concept of keeping a "hu...

Harvey AI has gone from newborn startup to an $8 billion juggernaut in just 31 months. But behind the headlines sit harder questions: opaque pricing, patchy adoption, defensive founders, and a conservative profession wrestling with risk. Danni and Pete cut through the noise to explore what this means for financial advice firms — from realistic ROI to cautious experimentation and the increasing nee...

In this special announcement episode, Danni and Pete sit down to talk about the next stage of Finura's growth plans. Finura is formally separating its consulting and software arms into two businesses — Finura Services and Finura Digital — each with its own purpose, priorities and rhythm. They walk through why the change matters, how it strengthens both sides of the business, and what it means...

Pete and Danni unpack the wild rise of Harvey. AI — thelegal-tech darling that raised US $865 million in just 31 months and hit a US $5 billion valuation. They trace how a Reddit side-project turned into a Silicon Valley feeding frenzy, and ask whether this is genius or a bubble waiting to burst. The chat veers from law-firm FOMO and elite-bait marketingto what it all means for financial-advice te...

In this episode, Peter Worn sits down with Matthew Vandermeer from Leading Teams to unpack what makes teams—and leaders—great. The conversation explores how the financial services industry is evolving, why culture matters as much as strategy, and how technology can either strengthen or fracture team dynamics if not led with clarity. Matthew shares lessons from his experience building high-performi...

Recorded Live from the Netwealth Accelerate Summit. Pete & Danni spend time with Sophie Firminger from Netwealth unpacking a real life cast study of a tech project which went horribly wrong. 00:00 Introduction to Advice Tech Challenges 01:09 Real-Life Tech Implementation Disasters 03:43 Evaluating Technology Solutions 06:14 The Importance of Team Involvement 09:07 Red Flags in Tech Selection 1...

Danni Le Grande and Peter Worn put their 2025 predictions under the microscope. From adviser numbers and platform monogamy to AI agents and YouTube marketing, they track the wins, the misses, and what’s still up for grabs. Expect sharp takes on margin squeeze in AdviceTech, private equity’s reshaping of the landscape, and why industry funds are still dragging their feet on tech. Plus: are AI “virt...

Come behind the scenes and listen to one of Peter's live presentations, including some controversial audience Q&A. It's unfiltered, unedited. Chapters: 00:00 The Future of AI in Healthcare and Financial Advice 19:10 Investing in AI: Short-Term Strategies 20:55 Valuations and Market Trends in AI 23:13 Consumer Adoption of AI Technologies 26:33 Training and Preparing for AI Integration 28:47 The...

In our first-ever live recording of The WealthTech Insider, Danni Le Grande and Peter Worn hit the stage at the IRESS WealthTech Summit to revisit — and ruthlessly score — the predictions we made for advice tech in 2025. Recorded in front of a room full of industry pros (and without the safety net of a mute button), we dive into what’s tracking, what’s tanking, and what’s surprised us most about t...