Macquarie Bank has launched a trading and loans platform that aims to cut through the need for a financial adviser.
Macquarie Prime, an online account that combines shares, gearing, cash and contracts for differences (CFD), is targeted at high-net worth investors and active traders.
The bank, which spent millions of dollars on creating the product, was seeing a strong move away from advisers entering the market to self-directed investors, Macquarie equity markets group associate director Dan Semmler said.
"The investors are dealing directly with the manufacturer," Semmler said.
The product consolidated a number of different products on the market and improved the use of CFDs, he said.
"Macquarie Prime is a significant improvement on CFDs. It is difficult to see why any investor would continue to use CFDs to invest in Australian shares," he said.
CFDs mirror the performance of a share or index without having the investor having to own them.
The continued growth of self-directed retail investors with more money and time on their hands meant gearing to invest in shares was becoming more widely accepted, Semmler said.
"Nearly 50 per cent of all retail activity is being executed online," he said.
