Platforms are here to stay despite the rise of separately managed accounts (SMA), the Wrap, Platform and Masterfunds conference heard earlier this month.
Around 250 people gathered in the Hunter Valley to hear from 30 experts in the platform space and the greatest trends they found were that SMAs were definitely not registering on the radar screens of advisers and fund managers (many advisers were still unsure what they were and how they worked).
In the United Kingdom, the SMA market is definitely growing strongly and leapfrogging the platform industry, mainly because of the tax-effective nature of these investments.
The UK market has also managed to manufacture platforms greatly superior to Australia’s as single insurance companies manage funds greater than the total Australian superannuation system.
Some of these companies are currently looking at Australia as an example of platforms.
But according to one expert, they will be able to do far greater things with the technology simply because of the great wall of money they will be able to throw at it.
Industry funds continue to be one of the greatest threats to the platform and advice industry.
Delegates heard there was a need for the industry to focus on simple positive messages to reinforce their worth. The value of advice is imperative in this argument.
Other advantages promoted by platforms included their superior insurance offerings, not allowing overweight unfit smoking males to benefit at the detriment of non-smoking fit women through group insurance deals.
Adviser Kevin Bailey, however, advised the industry to “love your enemy” – the industry fund – as they were on their way out. He said they would eventually crash and burn because of some of the risky investment strategies some had employed.
