Platform success about helping advisers

By Darin Tyson-Chan
Mon 05 May 2008

The preferred platforms for financial planners have been narrowed to a three-provider race.

Colonial First State FirstChoice has been found to be the platform financial planners most use in the market in the most recent IFA dealer group survey.

In the adviser community BT Wrap and Macquarie Wrap were the second and third most used platform products.

However, in regard to preferred platforms, BT Wrap unseated FirstChoice, taking out the top spot.

The secret to providing a successful platform product has been attributed to helping advisers work in a more efficient manner.

"Right from the word go [10 years ago] we worked with dealer groups and advisers to build something that they wanted. We worked with dealer groups like Count and Lonsdale and they're still our customers today," BT Financial Group head of wrap solutions Chris Freeman says.

The process of providing planers with features they need is continual and one that requires a degree of selectivity.

"The difficulty is determining right from right in terms of improvements. They're all good but it's a question of which is the most appropriate for most people," Freeman says.

"We need to focus on getting the basics right and that's why we're not resting on our laurels."
Macquarie Wrap's success has come because of its investment choice among other things, according to head of product Douglas Chang.

"Our users really appreciate the wide investment choice we provide them . and they like our consistent and reliable service to the advisers," Chang says.

Servicing new markets has also been a successful initiative for Macquarie.

"We've spent a lot of time developing reports to help advisers who manage self-managed super funds. We do that through our focus on various tools regarding equities administration, handling instalment warrants, and integration with financial planning software."

While evolution is essential to stay at the top of the rankings, there are key elements that need to be satisfied in order to make the process work, he says.

"We need to ensure that our systems and processes are scalable so that we can both maintain our service levels and benefit from an increasing size," he says.

"It allows us to reinvest in our business from a technology, people and service point of view."

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