Opes Financial

Financial planner in Melbourne, working Australia-wide.

A financial planner in Melbourne covering retirement, superannuation, insurance and tax-effective investing. Worked out of Docklands, delivered in person or by video, by an Authorised Representative of La Verne Capital (AR 409415).

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Yarra River curving past Docklands toward the Melbourne CBD at twilight.

Where we meet.

The practice is based at Suite 11.18, 401 Docklands Drive. Most Melbourne clients meet in the office at least once. Others, especially those out in Tarneit, Cranbourne or up in Wollert, prefer video.

In-person appointments are by booking. Parking is available at The District and on Docklands Drive. Trams on routes 11, 48 and 70 stop a short walk from the building, and Southern Cross is roughly ten minutes on foot.

Evening appointments run to 7pm AEST for clients who cannot leave a clinic or office at 5. The office is moving in January 2027, still inside the Docklands precinct, and existing clients are notified well ahead of the change.

Clients in inner-east suburbs such as Hawthorn, Camberwell and Kew tend to come in for the strategy meeting. Clients in bayside Brighton, Hampton or Sandringham split it roughly even between in-person and video.

What we can help with.

The brief is broader than super and retirement. Where it ends depends on the household, not the product shelf.

01

Retirement and transition

Drawdown sequencing, transition-to-retirement strategies, and the years before stopping work. Sized for income, not for a target balance.

02

Superannuation, accumulation

Fund selection, consolidation of legacy accounts, salary sacrifice and co-contribution. The structural work that compounds over a working life.

03

Personal risk insurance

Income protection, TPD, trauma, life. Business insurance for self-employed clients. Written into the broader plan, not sold against it.

04

Tax-effective investing

Negative gearing, franking credits, ownership structures. Coordinated with the household accountant where one is engaged.

05

Education, aged care, Centrelink

Children's education funding through to the cost of aged care and getting the Centrelink you are entitled to. The unsexy mechanics that quietly matter.

06

SMSF strategy alongside

Advice on setting up the fund sits outside this licence. SMSF lending and the broader strategy we handle in-house.

You get the advice in writing — formally, a Statement of Advice. If it involves managed funds, we start at a $50,000 portfolio.

Who we typically work with in Melbourne.

White-collar professionals with household income above $200,000. Doctors and specialists are a deliberate focus, partly because medical income is irregular enough to reward careful planning, partly because the existing book is heavy with them.

Pre-retirees in their final ten working years often start with retirement and drawdown planning, frequently feeding into the wider retirement planning hub. Young professionals between 25 and 35 starting the wealth-building stage. Small business owners with self-employed cash flow that does not look like a salary.

Existing Melbourne clients include practising specialists in the inner-east, families upgrading in bayside, and registrars renting in the inner-north while saving toward a first purchase in the growth corridors.

Advice for doctors and specialists

Planning sits next to broking and buyer's agent work.

Financial planning is the main thing we do, and the same adviser also sees the loan and the property side. For Melbourne households weighing up a purchase, the borrowing capacity calculator is a useful sanity check before the strategy meeting, and the file does not get split across three firms.

Buyer's agent clients get their financial planning at no extra charge when we start. The loans are arranged from the same office.

Also in-house
Mortgage broking in Melbourne
50+ lender panel. Docklands office or video.
See broking
Also in-house
Melbourne buyer's agent service
Inner-east, bayside, growth corridors.
See buyer's agent

Frequently asked questions.

The first conversation is free, and no fee is charged before you have seen it in writing. What advice costs depends on the scope of the work, so the number is quoted after that first conversation once we both know what is actually involved — not from a price list that cannot know your situation. All fees are set out in the Financial Services Guide and agreed before any work starts.
It is worth it when the decisions in front of you are big enough that getting one wrong costs more than the fee — structuring super near retirement, taking on debt, choosing insurance definitions, or selling an asset with a capital gain attached. It is usually not worth it if you have a simple salary, a single super fund and no near-term decisions. We will say so at the first conversation rather than take the engagement.
Ask, rather than assume you are too small. Some Melbourne firms set minimums of $500,000 or more in investable assets, but that is a business model rather than an industry rule, and plenty of the decisions worth advice — a first home, insurance definitions, what to do with a HECS debt and a deposit — happen long before that balance exists. The first conversation is free, so the cheapest way to find out is to have it.
Yes. Paid parking at The District Docklands is the most reliable option, and on-street bays run along Docklands Drive. Trams on routes 11, 48 and 70 stop within a short walk if you would rather skip the car.
Yes. For clients in outer Melbourne or regional Victoria, every meeting can run on Zoom or Teams. Documents are exchanged through secure upload and signed electronically. NSW clients have been served this way for years.
The practice runs to 7pm AEST. That suits clinicians, lawyers and shift workers who cannot leave their desk during business hours.
SMSF advice itself sits outside this licence. The SMSF lending is done under our credit licence, and the wider strategy is worked through with the client's accountant. We have written more than 30 of these loans.
Nothing. The first conversation is a free consultation. It is a discussion of goals and constraints, not a sales pitch, and there is no obligation to proceed.

Keep reading

A first meeting, on the house.

Thirty minutes by phone, video or in the Docklands office. If it is not a fit, Balki will say so.

Book a chat
Call 1300 67 37 37