Macquarie Wrap has finally broken through to take out the top position on the Wealth Insights Platform Service Level Report Rankings, with Colonial FirstWrap rated second.
Despite running second with respect to platforms, Colonial FirstWrap was ranked first with respect to the Wealth Insights Fund Manager Service Level report for the fourth year in succession – something Colonial First State (CFS) chief executive Brian Bissaker (pictured) attributed to the company’s ongoing investment.
Importantly, the Wealth Insights research was carried out before CFS announced key changes to FirstWrap earlier this year, including fee structures among the lowest in the industry.
Commenting on the findings, Wealth Insights managing director Vanessa McMahon said the research had been conducted among 870 financial planners in April.
Last year’s top ranked platform in the service level survey, IOOF’s Pursuit platform, was ranked third this year – with McMahon describing the rankings as being very close.
“Macquarie Wrap, Colonial FirstWrap and Pursuit are a dominant top three, and Colonial was only just pipped at the post,” she said.
In the Fund Manager Service Level Report, Colonial FirstWrap was followed by Perpetual and MLC.
Bissaker said that while he would have liked to have seen Colonial FirstWrap emerge at the top of the rankings with respect to both planner service levels and fund manager service levels, he was satisfied that it was a leader in the field.
He said that, importantly, he believed Colonial FirstWrap had been highly ranked by advisers with respect to service level satisfaction – something that represented an important measure to the company.
McMahon said the importance of the survey was that it had been a part of the Australian financial services industry for the past 20 years and, for some companies, had become a part of their internal performance measures.
She said that a key mistake for some platform providers was to only survey among their own planners – something that gave rise to the risk of skewing results.
Macquarie’s head of insurance and platforms, Justin Delaney, said he was delighted with Macquarie Wrap topping the Service Level Report rankings in circumstances where it had been among the top-ranked platforms for five years in a row.
“We have a strong service level proposition across a wide range of attributes and I think this outcome reflects that,” he said.
Delaney said Macquarie was constantly seeking to maintain Macquarie Wrap’s position, including running its own service level satisfaction research and acting upon the feedback provided by advisers.
“That means we are continuing to invest where it’s needed,” he said.
