Wealth manager MLC has significantly reduced the fees attached to its MasterKey Fundamentals platform following a review by the company’s advisory boards.
MLC MasterKey general manager Dean Thomas said the National Australia Bank wealth management arm had slashed the platform’s administration fee by more than half to 0.40 per cent a year for account balances up to $200,000, from 0.88 per cent a year.
The new fees would apply to new and existing accounts from 1 February 2012, Thomas said.
He said the platform’s pricing structure was put under review with its advisory boards due to the mismatch between administration and investment fees.
“MasterKey Fundamentals hasn’t changed its price in over five years since it was launched and the market was very different [then], so we took this opportunity to review our complete pricing package,” he said.
The focus had been on value for money, transparency and efficiency within the intensely competitive platform market, he said.
“There are certain segments of the market that probably lack the full transparency,” he said.
MasterKey will add additional investment options – MLC Index Plus Portfolios, the MLC Wholesale Australian Share Index Fund, Fairview Equity Partners Emerging Companies Fund and Pengana Asian Equities Fund – from 21 November.
“MLC is about building products for advisers with advisers, so we came up with a proposition around how to provide greater choice in an implemented investment solution to advisers so it targets their different client segments,” Thomas said.
“As we’ve seen over the last 12 months, we’ve really worked with advisers to say ‘what are the needs and how do we really make this product as relevant for you today, as it was five years ago?'”
MasterKey is in the process of releasing new enhancements for improved reporting, cash investments, online portals, social media and mobile applications. They will be launched over the next 12 months, with rollouts expected in March, June and August 2012.
Thomas said there would be no merger between MLC Wrap and MasterKey.
“They have different value propositions and [MasterKey] doesn’t really fit the same segment that an MLC Wrap portfolio does,” he said.
