Mr Thomas appeared on the 'Big End of Town' panel at the 14th annual Wraps, Platforms & Masterfunds conference in the Hunter Valley last week.
He was accompanied by BT head of product development Craig Lawrenson, Colonial First State general manager for products and investments Peter Chun, and ANZ Wealth head of wrap and SMSF Prue Howden.
Asked about the flow-on effect between banking businesses and their wealth divisions, Mr Thomas acknowledged there was once a lengthy delay.
"When the banks acquired wealth businesses, those businesses were held up on a pedestal – or were in different buildings," he said.
"As such, we developed our own systems, our own processes, our own way of doing things."
But more and more, wealth business and bank businesses have "really embraced each other", Mr Thomas said.
"We know that it is a huge advantage to be able to access the banking customers, and it’s a huge advantage to be able to access the resources of the bank – particularly around data and big data," Mr Thomas said.
BT's Craig Lawrenson spoke about the benefits of having a "digital front door" for customers, which is accessible either through the wealth division or the banking arm.
"Consumers can get that integrated full portfolio experience coming to [BT] directly or coming via the bank," Mr Lawrenson said.
For Colonial First State's Peter Chun, data security was the number one concern.
"Customers and our [financial] advisers have to have assurance that they trust the data is safe and secure," Mr Chun said.
"CBA’s NetBank, the online banking platform, has five million users per month – so you can imagine the seriousness that goes into security.
"The next evolution of platforms is how do we build on engagement. The use of data to build engagement, help advisers build engagement, that’s one theme we’re working with the bank [CBA] on," Mr Chun said.
ANZ Wealth's Ms Howden noted that her company was focusing on the direct channel rather than platforms.
"For ANZ Wealth, we’re actually at an incredible inflection point in our business," Ms Howden said.
"Our chief executive [Wealth, Joyce Phillips] is also head of innovation for the bank ... She is absolutely dedicated to the digital agenda for ANZ," she said.
"The next step for us is: how does that translate then for our intermediated platforms? We’ll leverage off that platform that’s been built for the direct space and then build it for our advisers as well," Ms Howden said.
"We’ve got a standard that we can work on, and it’s absolutely funded by the bank," she said.
