ANZ launches suite of changes in wraps and insurance
ANZ will launch its Grow Wrap in partnership with Macquarie Investment Management next week after it announced in February that it would abandon its Oasis wrap and transition over the next 12 months.
The wrap would include 180 managed funds on the portfolio, as well as ASX-listed securities, and cash options, including ANZ's own cash options.
Announcing a suite of new services to the media, ANZ Wealth Australia managing director, Alexis George, said it would include a different pricing mechanism where clients would only pay for what they use so that financial planners and clients could work together and not have to pay the highest price if they did not require the luxury service options.
"It's something our advisers have been demanding from us for some time and as we've already explained to you, we really needed to move forward in a very significant way in this space," George said.
George also announced a health and wellness pilot called Remedy Health, which is a health management tool for existing clients who either suffered from high cholesterol, blood pressure and/or body/mass index issues to relieve high costs in insurance.
"We work with financial planners to identify customers who have one of those three issues. Then they will be given free six month telephone counselling to help them change habits to address those three issues," George said.
ANZ will offer the service to 300 customers in the pilot and they will undergo a medical review after the counselling to examine if those issues have been addressed. If they had improved across the three key measures, the bank would look to reduce or even remove loadings on their insurance, depending on the levels of improvement.
"We really wanted to give customers the option to manage the loadings that they may have on their insurance because we know affordability is really key," George said.
Finally, the bank announced a 10 per cent discount in its Onecare death and total and permanent disability (TPD) cover for customers with a combined cover of over $1.5 million in a bid to encourage clients to examine if they had the appropriate level of cover.
"We really think it's important that people have the appropriate level of cover and we know that's not always the case at the moment," George said.
This discount would be on offer until the end of the year but it would be a lifetime discount.
George added that the motive behind this move was to remain competitive while maintain the balance of the bank's book.
ANZ also announced it is rebranding its online share platform, E*TRADE Australia to ANZ Share Investing, as the bank looks to eventually sell the division.
ANZ managing director, pensions and investments, Peter Mullin, said customers would continue to access the same trading tools, investment options and services as they did under E*TRADE.
“This is an important change for us as it brings our online share trading platform into the ANZ fold,” Mullin said.
E*TRADE was launched in 1998 and became a wholly owned subsidiary of ANZ in June 2007. It was the first Australian online broker to introduce fully automated straight-through processing, which meant customers’ orders were among the first to market.
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