Consider that only a decade ago only a small proportion of Australians directly owned shares. Fast forward a decade later and nearly all of us at one time or another have owned shares and are now quite comfortable doing so. Share ownership is no longer the sole domain of a privileged few. Welcome to the age of the DIY Investor.

So what changed. Simply speaking two things, Cost and Information.

Cost: Ten years ago a share trade would cost an Investor up to 2.5% of the trade being made. A trade of $10,000 would cost $250. The same trade today costs $30. Cost as a barrier to share ownership has been largely eliminated. The dramatic reduction in cost ultimately relates to one thing. Technology. Technology now allows us to buy and sell shares using a straight through electronic processing system that eliminates human intervention. In doing so, Brokers have dramatically reduced their biggest cost. Wages. What's more the Brokers providing these services are extremely profitable even though they have accepted a fee reduction of up to 90%! Technological advance is remarkable.

Information: We are truly living in the age of Information. And the medium delivering that Information is the Internet. The Internet provides information to the average Investor that only five years ago was the primary domain of the professional. Armed with this information Investors are realising all over the world that they have the knowledge they need to choose and manage their own Investments.

Curiously however the breakthroughs in cost and information so evident in the Share Broking Industry, have not filtered through to the DIY Super Market. Many studies now show that having professionals manage our Super adds little or no value to the long term value of our retirement benefit primarily due to the costs charged by those professional Fund Managers. With this in mind you would think that more than only 20% of Australians would be seeking to manage their own super benefit through a DIY Superfund, rather than rely on the questionable performance of a Fund Manager.

It is our belief at ESUPERFUND that more Australians would dearly love to be able to manage their own Superannuation Investments for what ultimately is their retirement. So why don't they? One word. Cost.

Unfortunately for Investors the same revolutionary cost reductions that have allowed us to buy shares at a 90% discount compared to just 10 years ago, do not seem to apply to the DIY Super Market. In fact it is commonly quoted that the average fee to run your own DIY Superfund is between $2,000 and $4,000 per annum. This is a cost that is increasing each year and is pricing the average investor out of this lucrative market.

So why isn't the cost of DIY Super coming down. After all technology is being used everywhere to lower the cost of all financial services we demand. So why not DIY Super.

The area of DIY Super has been the domain of the Accountant for over two decades. And this is the problem. The problem with Accountants (and we have all met our fair share) is that they are by nature conservative and very slow to adapt to change. In fact Accountants fastidiously perform the annual compliance requirements for a DIY Superfund in the same way they were twenty years ago.

This is not an attack on the humble Accountant (after all I was one for 15 years) but an acknowledgement that has far reaching implications for the average Australian. Accountants do not like change. They perform everything manually just like they always have. This time consuming manual process is labour intensive and the cost of Accounting Staff is going through the roof. Well guess who pays for that staff time.

So why don't Accountants adopt technological change that seems so commonplace everywhere else. Where manual processing can be eliminated and data electronically processed resulting in dramatic cost savings to the end user. Quite simply it costs too much. And Accountants are not large enough (given in most cases they are one or two man bands) to afford the cost. Especially if they have only 10 or 20 DIY Superfunds to manage. Try justifying a capital outlay of millions of dollars to an Accountant with 20 DIY Superfunds.

Enter ESUPERFUND who has single-handedly revolutionised the area of DIY Superannuation.

ESUPERFUND decided very early in our development that we would embrace the technological breakthroughs available in all other areas of business and apply them to DIY Super. As a result we have devoted significant time and capital to develop a process of capturing client information electronically directly from the clients Broker and Bank. This eliminates having to access and reconcile our clients' DIY Super information each year and manually input that information into our accounting software. This in turn provides dramatic cost savings to us which are passed on to our clients.

So what cost savings have actually been delivered. ESUPERFUND attends to all our clients DIY Super administration needs (including financial statements, tax returns and audit) for $699 per annum up to 80% below the average market fee. What's more we fix this cost irrespective of the size of your Fund or the number of transaction made. And this is precisely our point. Technology can process 1 transaction or 1,000 transactions in the blink of any eye once the need for manual input has been eliminated. So why should you pay extra for the extra transactions your Fund makes.

Revolutionary changes in any area are typically greeted with an air of scepticism by the general public. After all it is only human nature. However by our nature once the changes are satisfactorily explained to us we embrace the very changes we once derided. Each month hundreds of Australians are joining ESUPERFUND and embracing the DIY Super revolution we have delivered. Why don't you.