Hi, welcome to Nsites, your AI Investment Function for Commission Lead Advisors.
Yes, Commission Lead, let me quickly explain who they are first.
There are two types of advice, fee-based and Commission Lead.
Structurally, these are very different offerings.
Those differences generally stem from the source and timing of payments.
With fee-based, the client pays the advisor throughout the duration of the relationship.
With Commission Lead, the product provider pays the advisor.
Not client, and generally pays the vast majority up front.
So when thinking of Commission Lead Advisors, think financial generalists that sell all products.
They get paid by the product provider, which here in Ireland is one of these six companies.
Generally, they are small, owner-operated businesses.
So Commission Lead Advice has two very clear trade-offs.
On one side, it introduces a potential conflict of interest between the advisor and client.
Those clients really need the product or is the advisor just creating a commission event.
However, on the other side, the upfront commission makes it commercially viable to provide advice to clients at all levels.
Now, this balance has been debated by regulators for years, with close attention paid to the outcome of the UK Commission ban of 2012,
which ultimately had negative consequences by creating an advice gap.
So, across Europe, regulators have decided the good outweighs the bad, and chosen to retain upfront commission payments.
However, they are introducing significantly stricter rules governing the advice.
In Ireland, this falls under the Consumer Protection Code, which the recent amendments to come into force next month, March 2026.
The team of recent amendments is potting the client first.
In practice, this means that recommending a product switch or new investment, advisers must produce detailed investment research in rationale.
This is to satisfy upfront commissions.
Where charging a small recurring fee, where all advisers do, they must now deliver tangible services to justify that fee.
Now, while all this appears reasonable and principled, the structure of many commission-led advisory firms makes these requirements challenging to meet and practice.
Insights designed for one-click production.
Advisers don't want the ingredients. They want it to make the meal.
At the core of the platform are guided AI agents designed, trained, and tightly governed by us.
They operate using only approved data sets, local regulatory standards, and firm specific rules.
Delivering comprehensive research and analysis, both quantitative and qualitative.
Clear, written, contextualized explanations.
All presented in client-friendly language and intuitive visuals.
Automatically produced and professionally designed, fully firm branded reports.
Easy to create, easy to save, easy to share.
We go beyond just to research and analysis.
Our investment agent has completed the CFA exams and supports portfolio construction with goals standard reasoning.
Our planning agent operates the QFA, FP or IA, guiding and mapping potential outcomes.
Our client support agent will integrate directly with your existing CRM to automatically generate performance, review, and suitability reports.
It will also continuously monitor historic recommendations, warning you of action needs to be taken.
Our marketing agent updates and provides access to library of client campaigns, visual insights, and engagement tools.
Designed to support business development and client retention.
This is the engine of modern investment and pensions advice.
Commission led is the dominant form of advice in Ireland, and it's an integral part of the financial ecosystem.
It's estimated to be at least 55% of total assets under advice, and over 85% of total clients under advice.
So, it's not going anywhere, but it does need to evolve.
In Ireland alone, it's a 10 million euro a year market.
And, funnily, these demographics are mirrored across the globe, where commission led is dominant, and the market is conservatively estimated to be at least half a billion euro per year.
So, surely others are doing this. In reality, no, not really.
Existing research tools are built for investment specialists, largely in the UK and US.
They're also kind of crap.
Irish systems tend to be functional, but dated, and definitely don't do anything like this.
There are some OK, charting, and visual, and storytelling tools available.
But again, these are built around US market content, and also still remain difficult for generalist advisers to use.
And then the large technology providers typically focus on winning big enterprise mandates, nothing like this SaaS business.
What's next? Well, we are raising 150,000 in seed money.
This is to go alongside the 100,000 from Enterprise Ireland, which has already proved the principle.
This will allow us to build, iterate, and train insights, with the plan to be onboard 100 advisory firms in the next 18 months,
15 of which have already paid a deposit.
This will generate 300K in revenue, which is about a five extra turn on evaluation in 18 months for angel investors,
or come along for the ride for European expansion after a series a raise.
Thanks for listening and watching, and please get in touch to find out more.