BT Financial Group (BTFG) has appointed Standard & Poor's Fund Services (S&P) to provide research and investment consulting services to Westpac Financial Planning and dealer group Magnitude Financial Planning.

S&P replaces van Eyk, a BTFG spokesperson confirmed.

S&P already provided services to St George's financial planning businesses, including St George Financial Planning, Securitor and Licensee Select.

"We look forward to working with BTFG to address the challenges confronting investors and to ensure our high-quality, objective, and timely research appropriately supports BTFG in delivering quality advice to its customers," S&P managing director Mark Hoven said.

The new agreement includes the provision of research services to more than 1600 advisers across the BTFG network.

The research covers managed funds, structured products, direct property, separately managed accounts and exchange-traded funds.

S&P's wealth management services team will provide consultancy advice to BTFG Research and assist in the performance monitoring and attribution analysis of the approved product lists.

Hoven indicated the research house will hire an additional researcher in its wealth management services team in response to the expanded research agreement.

S&P has been St George's research provider since the firm took over the bank's in-house research arm ASSIRT in 2005.

In a separate announcement, BTFG said it had appointed Jane Watts as Westpac Private Bank general manager.

Watts replaces Jan Swinhoe, who will leave BTFG after 16 years with the group.

Watts joins from Macquarie Private Wealth, where she was head of wealth management and executive director.

At Macquarie, she was responsible for a portfolio of businesses within Macquarie Private Wealth that included Strategic Financial Planning, the Direct Sales team, Mortgages and Insurance, as well as Lachlan Wealth Management and Financial Index Australia.