Financial planning software firm PlanPlus Inc. has launched PlanPlus Web Advisor in the U.S. market, the Lindsay, Ont.-based company said Tuesday.

The company says it plans to fill the gap in United States market for high-level financial planning tools serving the rapidly growing Spanish and Chinese market segments.

The 2000 U.S. census revealed that almost one in five Americans speaks a language other than English at home. In the U.S. North East and the West Coast that percentage is closer to 30%.

“The U.S. has a lot of financial software solutions” says Brad Greer, vice president of global sales for PlanPlus, “but we feel there is a significant market to help service emerging segments of the population that are currently underserved. For example, the Chinese community is generally good savers and often affluent, but unlikely until now to receive written financial plans in their own language.”

PlanPlus is the world’s first multi-currency, multilingual and multi-jurisdictional investment and financial planning software. PlanPlus Web Advisor is being launched at the Investment Policy level and the software is available to U.S. advisors and clients in English, Spanish, Chinese and French.

“We need to recognize and respect the unique culture and needs of these sectors of our populations” says Greer, an American who is fluent in Chinese and Spanish and spent time working in China. “Our software is a good response to requests from the CFP Board of Standards, the American Financial Planning Association and the SEC to provide financial literacy tools and access to professional financial planners for underserved segments of the U.S. market.”

“PlanPlus has traditionally focused on Canada and the market outside North America,” says Shawn Brayman, PlanPlus President. “Given the recent market turmoil and record levels of consumer distrust, we felt that we could bring an outstanding IPS solution with some unique language capabilities to the U.S. advisor community to help advisors fill some of the trust gap.”

IE