Colonial is to rationalise its banner groups from four to two — Financial Wisdom and Colonial Financial Services — following last year’s take-overs.
The former Legal and General Banner group and Prudential Financial Planners will be rolled into Colonial Financial Services (CFS) which will include the Colonial Partners franchises. The SGIC brand will be kept for Adelaide within this group.
Colonial licensed financial services general manager Janet Smith says most planners will move to Colonial Financial Services, but a few will switch to Financial Wisdom.
“The Financial Wisdom group has a minimum business figure which planners have to achieve and this will give those in CFS a higher level to aim for,” she says.
“The move has also been necessitated as we move forward to comply with the CLERP requirements.”
Under the Colonial Partners operation, some back office franchises looking after a number of individual franchises were sold. Smith says these will remain, but a centralised back office operation has been setup in Sydney to look after most CFS operations and the Financial Wisdom planners.
“The back office franchises are more banking orientated and those banking franchises will come under the control of CFS,” she says.
The licensed financial services back office operation will be offered as an outsourced service to other dealer groups and individuals.
Smith says that while groups can take the complete back office package, Colonial will also be selling individual modules from the services such as compliance or training.
“We will be able to offer parts of our back office services so groups can meet the CLERP requirements without taking the whole service,” she says.
The establishment of the back office operation in Sydney has seen some more jobs go at Colonial’s Melbourne head office.
Smith says the move was logical as both L & G and Prudential had their head offices in Sydney as well as the Colonial State Bank operation. Melbourne supplied only back office facilities to the Colonial Partners franchises.
