UBS Australia's platform solutions group has launched an investment platform service aimed at independent planning groups that want to break away from major platform providers.
The service leverages UBS's access to 70 market and other global capabilities, as well as its stocks, bonds, foreign-exchange and derivatives trading.
UBS head of investment platforms Ian Dunbar said the platform could provide relief to planners looking to add products and services to their toolkits in the run-up to the introduction of the government's Future of Financial Advice (FOFA) reforms.
Dunbar said planners could add the service at a low cost because UBS's size lent economies of scale to the platform.
He said the UBS platform solutions group's target markets included brokers, who typically had large numbers of self-managed superannuation fund (SMSF) clients, and superannuation funds, who could offer members the ability to replicate SMSFs within their super funds.
Among financial planners, UBS has set its sights on those who are independent of aligned dealer groups or are in the process of becoming independent.
"These are planning groups that are establishing their licences or have established their licences, and are looking to break away from the existing batch of platforms," Dunbar told InvestorDaily.
"They own their business, they own the destiny of their business, they own their clients. That's very important; their clients are their clients, not UBS' clients.
"In a post-FOFA world, they own the products and the services that they provide to their clients."
The platform's launch clients include Patersons and a large superannuation fund but UBS's platform solutions group expects business to double year on year over the next three years.
"We're in discussions with a number of organisations that represent a material quantum of [funds under management] on the incumbent platforms," Dunbar said.
He said the platform had no capacity constraints.
