Fiducian Portfolio Services (FPS) will offer badged platform and model portfolios to non-aligned financial planners, marking a return to this space for the first time in more than five years.
FPS head of operations and business solutions Patrick Jackson said the white label platform would offer a tailored investment menu of 80 funds, including access to Fiducian’s own range of multi-manager funds and separately managed account model portfolios.
Jackson said FPS had offered limited badged platforms services for clients over the past few years, but had used third party back-end technology providers which restricted its capability to offer a full service.
“We have offered platforms to non-aligned planners in the past, but at our listing in 2000 we began to be vertically integrated and moved much of the administration inhouse as we started Fiducian Financial Planning.
“Since then we have invested in our systems with the intention of returning to the non-aligned market as part of a longer play in this space. We had a choice to bunker down and grow our own distribution network or compete with other players and spend the time and money to build the administration needed to offer this service,” Jackson said.
The platform is also used by the 78 planners within Fiducian Financial Planning but is being pitched to planners in small- to medium-sized planning groups. Jackson said these planners are often neglected by the large platform providers who are now focussed on growing their own planners.
“Our intention is to offer solutions and a platform built for financial planners, not to 'keep up with the Joneses’ of the platform world,” Jackson said.
“Each contract for the platform will be negotiated individually depending on the amount of bespoke work. We will be offering services at comparable rates to our competitors in the space, but with a greater emphasis on flexibility and ongoing relationships.”
