Speaking with InvestorDaily, Count chief executive David Lane said he was aware of suggestions in the media when the group purchased Count, insinuating it was a distribution play.
“There was always a concern [as to whether the acquisition was just a distribution grab],” he said.
“This to me is much more interesting because it gives us access to accountants who I think are an incredibly powerful group – who do you trust more than your accountant? More and more, the government is driving accountants into financial advice and when they take away the exemption, more and more they’re going to be working under an [Australian Financial Services Licence].”
Mr Lane said with five to 10 thousand suburban accounting firms out there without a financial advice offering, “we don’t have to pay all sorts of money to pay advisers in from other groups”.
“We don’t really have any interest in doing that, we only have interest in taking on accounting-based financial advisers, and a vast majority of them right now are not providing financial advice,” he said.
However, many of those accountants may be forced to become advisers once the accountants’ exemption is phased out by 1 July 2016. “They’re going to think ‘why should I just do a limited amount of what I can do when I can do the full amount?’" Mr Lane said.
“And that plays right to Count’s strengths. The opportunity here is to grow on the accounting side and to grow it significantly.”
At the time of the acquisition in 2011, there was speculation CBA would look to move Count planners’ funds under advice from their existing BT platform across to Colonial First State products such as First Choice.
While First Choice Wholesale has been added to the group’s approved product list (APL), which Mr Lane said followed feedback from members that they wanted better platform pricing, the group also last year negotiated a 20 basis point reduction in pricing on the existing BT platform, and in the Count-branded CFS Custom Solutions Star product that the group was already using prior to the acquisition.
Earlier this week, Mr Lane also announced the introduction of IOOF’s Pursuit platform to the APL at a better price point than the Skandia product it replaced.
“We need to find the best products and whether the best products are BT or CBA or IOOF, it’s the best products and it’s [about having] choice and letting [the advisers] make the right choice for their clients,” he said.
