Insignia is backing an open-architecture model for financial advice firms, committing $3 million through MLC Expand to connect its own platform and investment capabilities into Padua’s adviser technology ecosystem.
Insignia has entered a strategic partnership with Australian advice technology provider Padua Solutions, connecting its super, pension and investment platform to an end-to-end workflow designed to identify client needs, produce compliant advice and carry approved recommendations through implementation.
The agreement moves platform competition beyond product menus, fees and transaction tools. MLC Expand would meet advisers earlier in the advice journey, when client information is gathered and opportunities are identified, and remain connected after a recommendation is approved.
Expand already has considerable scale. By May 2026, MLC reported that the platform held more than $100 billion in funds under management and administration for more than 240,000 customers. MLC Expand also attracted $1.7 billion in net inflows during the December 2025 quarter.
The next opportunity is to connect that scale more directly to the work advisers perform before and after recommending a platform.
Padua’s proposition begins well before implementation. Its Advice Portal supports digital fact find and client engagement; Padua WealthX uses Consumer Data Right open banking to capture income, expenses, property values and mortgages; and Wealth Review creates a whole-of-wealth view across personal, platform and off-platform information. Advice Guidance and Advice Optimiser capabilities then support rapid advice production using nearly 900 financial planning strategies and defined turnaround-time commitments. Padua WealthAI turns completed advice documents into adviser-ready personalised video summaries, before Padua.IO and its audit layers carry the approved outcome towards execution.
Advice Guidance helps define the strategy, while Advice Enablement produces the advice and AQA checks it, returning required corrections until the document meets the agreed standard. WealthAI then creates personalised presentations and video summaries to help advisers explain the advice to their clients. Once the advice is approved, PaduaIO prepares the implementation steps and RAFA checks the resulting evidence.
Padua says its ecosystem has produced more than 200,000 advice documents and supports more than 1,100 advisers across more than 100 licensees. It says the integrated model can help an adviser move from servicing around 100 clients to as many as 300 by reducing the work involved in discovery, advice production, quality assurance and implementation.
Padua has already demonstrated the interoperable model through its recent AUSIEX integration announcement, which brings execution, clearing and settlement capability inside the adviser workflow. MLC Expand would broaden the model across platform and asset management, giving advisers on MLC Expand access to Padua’s connected discovery, advice and implementation experience.
“Advisers consistently tell us that their scarcest resource is time. They want help moving from an identified client need to completed advice without adding another layer of administration.
“Padua gives us a practical way to connect MLC Expand, our technical capability and our Adviser Success team to that work.”
Cable Rickard, General Manager, Sales and Adviser Success, MLC Expand — illustrative future-state quote
For advisers using Padua, the benefit is a shorter downstream path when MLC Expand is selected. Approved advice can move through Padua.IO into MLC Expand account opening, instructions, status events and reconciliation with less re-keying and fewer manual hand-offs. If another platform is appropriate for the client, the same Padua workflow could support that destination as the relevant provider connects. Padua would remain an open ecosystem rather than becoming an MLC Expand front end.
“MLC Expand has already done the hard work of building a contemporary platform at scale. Padua connects that platform to the decisions and activities around it.
“An adviser should be able to identify a client need, develop and explain the advice, obtain authority and implement it without rebuilding the same client record at every step.”
Matt Esler, Padua CEO and Managing Director — illustrative future-state quote
The commercial tension is familiar. MLC Expand has an interest in platform growth, while advisers and licensees must retain control of advice and product selection.
The proposed structure separates partnership funding from product recommendation. MLC Expand would support integration, adviser activation, and measurable service outcomes. Adviser judgement, client consent, licensee policy and best-interests duties would continue to determine the advice.
PaduaIO gives that boundary operational form. It prepares a sequenced implementation plan, while clients and advisers authorise the material steps. Connected systems execute those instructions and RAFA compares what happened with what was advised. The resulting evidence record would be available to the client, adviser, licensee and participating institution.
The timing also fits Insignia Financial’s broader efficiency and growth agenda. CC Capital and OneIM completed their $3.9 billion acquisition of Insignia in April 2026 and backed management’s ambition to become Australia’s leading and most efficient diversified wealth manager by 2030.
A connection with Padua would give that strategy a measurable adviser-growth initiative built around MLC Expand’s existing platform scale. MLC Expand’s advantage would come from combining its contemporary proprietary platform with a broader adviser workflow it does not need to own. Its technology team could continue improving the platform while Padua connects discovery, advice production and implementation across providers.
In a market where platform product ranges and fees are increasingly comparable, the provider that removes the most work surrounding a suitable recommendation should capture more of the advice that follows.
“We want MLC Expand to be the platform that is easiest for advisers and their teams to do business with.
“This partnership would help advice practices identify who needs advice, move that work forward and deliver a better experience for their clients.”
Cable Rickard, General Manager, Sales and Adviser Success, MLC Expand — illustrative future-state quote