Platform providers are diverting from imperative licensee issues because they are placing a greater focus on managed fund innovation for financial advisers.
“I debate what I read regularly about [advisers] calling for more styles of different managed funds and the like,” My Adviser managing director Philippa Sheehan told delegates at the Wraps, Platforms and Masterfunds Conference last week.
“There are some really great funds out there at the moment, so we actually don’t need too much more innovation.”
“I get lots of knocks on the door as a licensee and I also sit on our investment committee, so I hear about great new products that have been created but I don’t need new products, I actually just need really good old products.”
Platform providers should instead be helping licensees in more urgent areas that would support advice businesses going forward, such as straight-through processing, she said.
“We use our software for more than just an SOA (statement of advice) output; we use the data to analyse for model portfolio modelling and to see if there is a problem with an underlying investment,” she said.
“Now the only way we can get that is if the data feeds are moving properly back through the other side and the advisers were also inputting their data correctly, so if we can get straight-through processing on platforms, get the quality of data feeds happening and efficient administration, then that’s going to create so much demand [from] our existing advisers to use you.”
In addition, platform providers must increase broader support for advisers and end clients, she said, adding that education was lacking on how different types of funds fit within specific portfolios or strategies.
She said it was also important platform providers’ transitions teams were prepared to be physically “on the ground” when it came to rolling over large legacy business for advisers.
Concerning Future of Financial Advice reform requirements, platforms will have a definite role to play, however, they would not be considered as a solution to opt-in for My Adviser.
“Within my group, not one adviser has 100 per cent of their business on one platform, so if I’m running a fiduciary business with my clients, you will never have 100 per cent of my business because it may be better for them to stay where they are,” Sheehan said.
“The annual disclosure statement is, again, something that a platform provider cannot help me with.”
Unless platform providers became more of a software offering, advisers would be unable to add file notes and actions completed on behalf of clients, and platforms would not therefore be the right solution, she said.
