Welcome....
to Australasia's first Internet based financial planning practice.
The following document is intended to provided a step by step walkthrough of the services available from DIOA. Please print this document before continuing.
The site is all about investments so let's start there. Having printed this document, please go back to the main menu and click below the "Quick investment information" marquee (on some browsers, the marquee may appear as text only and not scroll). From this point onwards, follow your printed version of the guided tour.
Quick investment information
This takes you to the Quick investment search page. On this page you can select from a drop down menu of managers or view a list of all managers and select a particular manager. You can then select an investment environment from a self explanatory drop down and your chosen sector from a drop down.
If you choose shares, you will need to specify Australian or Other. For example, choose Colonial First State as the manager and "Superannuation taxed" as the environment. Then click the button.
This takes you to the search/quick_search.asp page which gives you some basic information on your selected investments. Note that the list of investments has been filtered to exclude investments that are likely to appeal to only a small user base.
For now, we suggest you go back to the search page. You will see a link to a more refined search below the submit button. Click on this please.
This takes you to the Search Investments window which we will use as the basis of a full explanation of the DIOA investment database. If you want, you can skip to "Getting an application form and prospectus".
Step 1 gives you the chance to view lists of managers, environments, regions and sectors and subsectors. Click on the button for managers, environments or regions to see what is available. The sectors and subsectors list is more complex. Click to have a look what is available. If you select a subsector (ie input it at step 2), whatever you input if anything in sectors will be ignored
Notice at Step 2, we have set defaults for the investment type that we feel most people will want to look at. It is Environment ID 4 (taxed superannuation), the Manager ID is left blank which means you will see all managers. The Region ID 1 (the wide brown land) and relates to Subsector ID 58 (balanced medium equity composite funds). You can change any or all of these but please change them back before continuing this tour.
At Step 3, we have set some more defaults including a minimum subscription of $2,000.
There is also a default at Step 4. This is a key part of the DIOA service but we can ignore it for the moment.
Now click the button. Wait a while and you will see the results window. The results are somewhat similar in layout to those from the quick investment search. Importantly, the input boxes above the details are the same. The first investments you see are those managed by the first participants in the DIOA concept. Go down a bit and you will see investment ID 188. That's an easy number to remember and we will use it to see some other features on the site. Please Note: Investment ID 188 is a good example of the operation of the DIOA concept but we express no opinion on its suitability for you. Please remember this throughout this tour.
Please go to the top of the page. At the right of the table shown, we disclose the annual fees that DIOA will receive if you make an investment through it. We also show how much you will save on initial commissions.
Investment details
Please enter 188 as the Investment ID in the "view detailed investment information" panel and click the "view" button.
This takes you to the full investment details page (DiscountInvestment/search/investment_allinfo_new.asp). This shows information about the particular investment in major categories of
- general,
- administrative and fees (including,in the yellow box, the savings you can get from DIOA),
- subjective information (as much as we have been able to gather from the manager, our investigations and Morningstar Research) and then
- price and performance details.
Part of the price and performance detail is the table referring to your "Personal Risk Angle". We will come back to that later.
Linking to managers' sites
Importantly, in the general information, we provide email and Website links. If DIOA does not know the email address of the manager, clicking "Email Them" will invoke an email to DIOA. If the manager has not formally agreed to participate in the DIOA concept the Website link is not activated.
Let's try a link to the manager's site. Please click "view" next to "Website" ( The last item in the general information section.) You will now be in BT's site.
To come back to the investment search results window you will need to click your browser's "Back" button twice, returning to DiscountInvestment/search/searchmain.asp. Also "Refresh/Reload" your screen.
Comparing an investment with its peers
We have now seen full details of Investment ID 188. The next thing we can do is to make a more detailed comparison of it with its peer group. Again, for the present, we will ignore the "personal risk angle" and leave it at the default of 45 degrees. Please enter 188 as the Investment ID in the "Compare an investment with peers" panel and click the button.
In a few moments a very wide screen, the peer investments comparison (DiscountInvestment/search/peerinv.asp) appears. This shows a great deal of information about every investment in the same environment, region and subsector as our selected investment.
We don't have the technology yet to easily "title" this screen and this makes it a little hard to read. What we can do and have done is organise the background colours in a logical way to help you in comparing investments.
A glimpse at the personal risk angle
You will notice that the list is sorted in descending "three year target return" order. Let's see how we can change this.
Please go "back" one screen and refresh/reload the screen when prompted. Now please enter 188 as the Investment ID in the "Compare an investment with peers" panel and enter 60 in the "Personal Risk Angle" field and click the "view" button. You will see the same wide screen but the sort order may be different and the one three and five year target returns will be lower. This is an illustration of the "personal risk angle" at work. We will come back to this later but the important point to note is a high personal risk angle represents a cautious investor.
Getting an application form and prospectus
At this stage, assume you have seen enough to decide that you would like to invest in Investment ID 188.
In most windows, you will see a "request prospectus" link. Please click on this and you will see DiscountInvestment/prospectus/prospectus.htm, our standard prospectus request.
Note that the manager in the case of Investment ID 188 is BT and the environment is taxed superannuation.
Selecting BT as manager and the taxed superannuation environment from the drop down lists, completing your details and clicking on places your request in the DIOA database. (Please do not press the submit button unless you are serious about getting a prospectus.) DIOA will then, within one business day, send the manager an email asking it to post prospectuses to you.
We will ask the manager to place DIOA's dealer code on the application form.
If you use this prospectus order process, your information will be held on DIOA's data base for thirty days after which it will be deleted if you have so requested.
If you do not want to give your details to DIOA, you can click on the "confidential prospectus request" link near the top of the screen and DiscountInvestment/prospectus/confidentialprospectus.htm will appear. This process does not send any information to DIOA (unless it is obvious to you). It allows you to contact the manager directly. A similar process is used in requesting annuity quotations.
The confidential request process will trigger a display of the investment manager's telephone number and allow you to email the manager.
We will abort the process before the actual request information is sent so you can put junk in the address areas of the form. Do, however, enter 188 as the investment ID. Please click the button.
The next page in the confidential prospectus request process (DiscountInvestment/prospectus/confidentialprospectus.asp) will appear. The idea here is that all of the text that you will see if you page down (i.e. Starting at "To the Manager") and the rest of this page is copied and then pasted into an email to the manager.
A side tour about ensuring you get the benefits of DIOA
Before doing this, note that under the confidential process, the manager will be asked:
Please mark the application forms in the prospectus with your dealer code for DIOA (shown below) so I can get the benefits of DIOA's minimum commission service.
A similar request is made on your behalf by DIOA under the quick prospectus request process.
This is convenient, but not essential. What is essential is that your investment application, when you send it to the manager, indicates that yours is a DIOA sponsored application. There are several ways to do this. They are described in the how to use the DIOA service page invoked from the main menu. We will come back to this later.
Back to getting the confidential prospectus process
For now, click on the start of To the Manager and move your mouse down to the very bottom of the page. Then Ctrl C or Edit Copy. You are now ready to copy the prospectus request.
Close to the very bottom of the page is a link "Mail Them" below a red "SEND REQUEST". Please click it.
Your own email client will be invoked with the email address of the manager or, if that is unknown, that of DIOA preset as the addressee. You can then paste the text you copied into the message part of your email. Its ready now to send.
This is where we abort the example process. Please don't send the email. Close your email program and return to our site.
You will notice that the manager's telephone number is prominently displayed. You can use this rather than email. But make sure that you ask the manager to identify DIOA on the application forms. You can quote the manager's dealer code if it is shown.
Careful here!!
This brings us to another issue. Managers' websites often have their own prospectus request forms. If you use one of these, please be sure to include a comment to the effect that it is a DIOA sponsored request.
How to be recognised as part of our group
So far we have briefly toured the processes of investment selection and two ways of getting a prospectus. We have emphasised the need for any applications that you submit to be identified as DIOA sponsored so that you can get the benefits of savings from DIOA's minimum commission concept.
There are several ways that you can identify investments as DIOA sponsored. The easiest is for the investment managers to put DIOA's "dealer code" on the application form. We try to get them to do this in the process of obtaining prospectuses.
If the managers have not done this, we have an instruction that you can print off and attach to your application form. If you have a number of applications you want to submit, we have a sheet you can print and photocopy to create stickers you can paste onto application forms in lieu of "Brokers' stamps".
The concept of the stickers is a DIOA copyrighted innovation and the stickers can be used to allow anyone beat the tyranny of investment commissions.
Finally, you can simply write DIOA's name, address and mission in the agent / broker area of the application form.
To see more details about the instructions and the stickers, please invoke the how to use the DIOA service button on the main menu and explore that area.
Now the hard part - the personal risk angle
We have delayed detailed comment on the "personal risk angle". This is another DIOA innovation. To read about it, please go back to the main menu and click the "Glossary of terms" link. Select the letter "P" and then scroll down and read the text under "Personal risk angle". That text links you to the investment search help page, where you can click "personal risk angle" and read all about it.
To get an idea of how the personal risk angle works in practice, go back to the main menu and select the "Search Investments" option. You will get the screen you were originally presented with.
Note the defaults are unchanged. Now please page down and change the sort area in the green part of step 3 to, say, 1 year personalised performance. Begin the search and you will see the order of the investments changes.
Go back and change the sort order and the personal risk angle in step 4 to say 60 and search again. Then try other angles and other sort orders to see what happens.
Now you know how the personal risk angle is working, revisit the description by clicking the help button at the top of the Search Investments page (DiscountInvestment/search/searchmain.htm) and select your own angle from the table one screen up from the very bottom of the help page.
Defining your searches
Now is the time to look at some of the other filters on the investment search page (DiscountInvestment/search/searchmain.htm). Please go to the very top of that page and click on the leftmost button. This generates a search which shows the Environment IDs which you can enter in Step 2. Most people will be interested in items 4, 5 or 6. Similarly, you can view other filter qualities using the other yellow buttons. Note that the treatment of investment sectors and subsectors is slightly different to give you greater flexibility. Most people will probably be interested in the composite or shares sectors.
Where to now?
What else can we show you? Well, you have already glimpsed our glossary, you can look at that at your leisure.
A new view of Tax and Social Security rates and rules
Other important and useful information is available by clicking the Rates and Parameters link on the main menu. Please click it.
You see you are now presented with a choice of the type of information.
Clicking the "Your personal situation" link on the age related taxation factors will introduce you to another DIOA innovation. We show you not only your life expectancy and that of your partner, but the chances that each, either and both of you will be alive at various times. Please click the link and input your details to see some worrying statistics.
Confidentiality
Now is the time for a word about confidentiality. With the exception of sending emails or where it is specifically stated that information will be retained, nothing you enter to this site is kept by DIOA for more than thirty days unless you consent.
Note that if you use the "Hotmail" email server, you may need to manually insert your email address in the "from" field so that we know where to reply to you.
Financial planning tips
Some very useful tips are contained in our lurks and loopholes page accessed from the main menu. This contains commonly used financial planning strategies. It's worth a visit but needs no special explanation.
Checking the managers
Our search managers facility on the main menu is similar in function to the investment search and you might want to look at that at your leisure.
Skipping over the last bit
There is little that is special or complicated about the other features accessible from the main menu.
How big's a crowd?
You think you've done this tour on your own but there may have been others just ahead or just behind and you never knew. That is the beauty of the Internet - everyone can visit and having large numbers doesn't spoil it. Contrast that with touring the wilderness or an art gallery.
In fact with this site, the more who use it the better it gets. There are many things we can and will do to bring complete financial planning to the privacy of people's homes away from the pressure of the "hard sell". But to do this, given our low fee structure, we will need to get a significant proportion of Australasians using the service.
All done - thanks - please come back and please tell others
So we conclude by thanking you very much for taking the time to tour our site, inviting you to come back as often as you wish and asking that you spread the word as widely as possible. Perhaps on the way out, you could look at ways of spreading the word by clicking "keep this site free" just below the yellow table on the main menu.
...Thank you
from Australasia's first Internet based financial planning practice.