BT Financial Group has overhauled its operations with a view to expanding its adviser take-up of BT products by preparing them for life after government reforms.
The company also aimed to capture a greater share of the superannuation, investment advice and insurance business from parent Westpac Banking Corp’s 7 million banking customers, BTFG chief executive Brad Cooper said.
“The first focus is very much the IFA (independent financial adviser) channels and the dealer groups and how do we make sure that we’re supporting them, because that’s the heart of our business – helping our dealer groups and advisers navigate the changes that are coming their way,” Cooper told InvestorDaily.
As part of the restructuring, BTFG has created a new business transformation division to be headed by John Shuttleworth. Shuttleworth and his team will be tasked with building next-generation platforms for life after the Future of Financial Advice (FOFA) reforms.
“Whilst we’ll help advisers and dealer groups navigate the changes in the existing platforms, and that’s very much measured by net flows and percentage of market share over the next few years, the business transformation division is very much about ensuring that we’re positioned for the very long term, post-FOFA and all the regulatory changes coming in,” Cooper said.
BTFG’s BT Wrap has $42.4 billion in funds under administration (FUA), making it the nation’s largest platform. The group’s Asgard platform has $29 billion in FUA.
Cooper said BTFG also wanted to improve the low penetration rate of its products within the base of customers with Westpac, St George and Bank of Melbourne.
“About 84 per cent of our customer base would have home and contents insurance, but about 14 per cent of those customers would have it with us. We’ve got about 5 per cent of the life insurance market share,” he said.
Another new division, bank distribution and insurance, would be led by Mark Smith and would aim to drive more banking business to BT products.
Mark Spiers would head the advice brands, which would add about 140 advisers, mainly from within the banking ranks, over the next three years. The new hires would boost the group’s number of planners to about 1200.
