Westpac has released an educational tool for advisers and investors explaining the benefits of employing gearing strategies to help achieve financial goals in a more efficient manner.
In particular, the bank is looking to clarify the actual levels of risk associated with gearing strategies in equities.
The publication, entitled "Stress-free strategies to accelerate you wealth", comes on the back of a national Westpac adviser roadshow covering the use of gearing.
"We have taken a pretty big stand on this stress-free gearing booklet. It's being well advertised and well promoted and the initial feedback has been really good," Westpac head of sales and distribution Craig Keary said.
"We think it's really important for Westpac to take the lead on that and provide tools that will help investors to be able to understand the different structures that are available and help them, as the book implies, invest in a stress-free way."
The booklet and online facility cover a range of different gearing topics and strategies for equity investments, including margin loans, capital-protected loans, appropriate levels of gearing and the use of limited recourse loan arrangements for self-managed superannuation funds.
"Recent volatility and serious down performance in the market . created this perception that gearing gives you an outcome where you're in and you're geared up heavily and it's pretty scary and watch out you could lose your house, or you just don't do it at all," Westpac head of margin lending David Curry said.
"So what we're trying to do is really get back to basics and break down some of those views and saying gearing isn't just in or out, there are a range of strategies and a range of different ways you can do this. There are different strategies and different structures and different products which may work for different risk profiles."
The publication had also been designed to be a lead generation tool for advisers, Westpac head of structured products Cathy Kovacs said.
