According to Dion Asia Pacific managing director Joe Nash, IRESS currently dominates 90 to 95 per cent of the retail and wholesale trading platform market.
The new Dion platform, TradeCentre, has been rolled out at Perth financial services firm Hartleys Limited, with 50 staff now using the software, said Mr Nash.
He said the software is highly adaptable, with each of the 50 advisers immediately customising the platform to their specific needs.
According to Mr Nash, TradeCentre has the edge over IRESS’s product when it comes to flexibility, integration with the back-office and speed.
“IRESS has been a great ambassador in Australia – they’ve really driven this market. But when new entrants come into market, we’re able to drive down price,” he said.
The Dion platform is chiefly aimed at stockbrokers, said Mr Nash, but it will be useful to a limited number of financial planners who currently use some functions of the IRESS trading platform.
“They may be using limited amount of function on the IRESS terminal for market data and to place execution orders back to their broking [partners],” he said.
“The market’s tiered. You’ve got your traditional brokers replacing the desktop and you’ve got that extension of the wholesale market, which is the financial planning community,” said Mr Nash.
There are also stockbrokers who have left an institution and now operate their own private wealth business with an established client base, he added.
While TradeCentre is not competing directly against XPlan, it does fulfill the regulatory requirements for stockbrokers to generate records of advice and statement of advice, said Mr Nash.
IRESS chairman Peter Dunai recently said there would be a “demand for technology solutions driven by regulatory requirements” at his company’s annual general meeting earlier this month.
