North targets wrap space following AMP boost
AXA's North platform is branching out from its traditional guarantee offer and targeting the wrap space more broadly with the help of AMP's backing.
Although the guarantee is still a significant part of the offer North is now a fully fledged wrap that is holding its own among more established competition and the non-guarantee flows have been a big part of the platform being able to increase its net flows, according to AMP director of platforms Steve Burgess.
North more than tripled its net cash flows from $209 million in the first half of 2011 to $636 million in the first half of this year.
More than 90 per cent of those net flows were into non-guaranteed products with just over half of assets under management (AUM) now in non-guarantee business, according to AMP.
Around $190 million of new business was written by AMP and Hillross advisers, and around $58 million in term deposits were acquired by AMP Bank through the North platform in the period, AMP stated.
There was a large overall increase in term deposit business, which accounted for 25 per cent of inflows but still only 13 per cent of AUM.
Burgess said scale is a very important part of making the economies of a platform work, and this would be boosted by the current migration of Summit to North, a process which should be completed by the end of 2013.
"By the time we do that there will be $20 billion on there that gives us ample scope," he said.
Burgess also flagged further upgrades for the platform, which has so far had about $60 million spent on it since its inception around five years ago.
North has gone from 160 investment options on the menu in July last year to more than 235 now, and will see some fee changes - including the introduction of family fee aggregation and cash account fee changes - later in 2012.
North surpassed $3 billion in AUM during the half year, more than half of which is managed internally through ipac multi-manager, and almost a third of which was written by non institutionally aligned advisers.
The half year also saw an increase of 978 new advisers registered to use the North platform, with a total of 3418 advisers now registered, according to AMP.
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