AMP and HUB24 target heavy adviser growth on platforms

AMP and HUB24 have shared the areas where they are seeking future adviser growth, with HUB24 targeting adding more than 2,000 advisers to the platform.

Speaking at the Citi Investment Conference 2025 held in Sydney, AMP’s Edwina Maloney and HUB24 CEO Andrew Alcock discussed growth of their platforms within the adviser industry.

Maloney, who is group executive for platforms at AMP, said the firm is now looking at IFAs, having divested its stake in several advice firms to AZ NGA at the end of last year. In its half-year results, the firm said North signed 34 new distribution agreements with AFSLs during the period and activated 25 net new advisers who had $1 million-plus in funds under advice. In total, North has over 4,200 active adviser relationships.

It previously estimated there is an addressable market of over 12,000 advisers who could potentially come onto the platform. 

She said: “There’s a couple of areas for us; the first is about adviser efficiency. If we can get advisers from 110 to 200 [clients] on average then you’re doubling the book size. 

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“The second is around advisers who have become inactive on North. I have around 2,000 advisers who are inactive so it’s about reactivating those and turning them back into advocates for North again. That’s an untapped opportunity. 

“Finally, let’s orientate our sales team into an advice segment we haven’t talked to in a long time because we were focused on our aligned network of advisers. We are back out there, we are talking to them and we are relearning, it’s like muscle memory.

“So that’s a huge opportunity for us and we’re seeing great success there with the goal of getting advisers to first start using our solutions for new clients and then it will grow from there.”

Also appearing on the panel, HUB24’s Alcock discussed similar plans for the firm. The platform said adviser numbers using HUB24 grew by 13 per cent in the 2024–25 financial year, and Alcock said there is “no reason” why HUB24 couldn’t gain as large a market share as the traditional platform incumbents. 

In its FY25 results, the platform said it now has 5,097 active advisers on the platform, with the firm noting that this is the equivalent of a third of all advisers in Australia. Some 572 advisers joined during the 12-month period, the highest growth since FY21. 

Alcock attributed the growth so far to the firm’s work with large national advice groups and the different platform options it offers for client types.

“You would think with a capped number of advisers that you would see our growth stop but we’ve seen an average of 400 advisers a year so we’ll keep doing what we are doing which is working with large national advice groups,” Alcock said.

“Why can’t the leading platforms in the future get to the size of the old incumbents? Why can’t we get to 7,500 advisers over time, that’s where others have been in the past.

“Our platform now, you could argue, is what four platforms did in the past in terms of the different products and extra segments. You no longer have to leave the fund to move from a core product to a choice product because the four different solutions are using the same train tracks and capabilities.

“The proposition of being able to take a client on a life journey, as opposed to having to leave one platform and join another, is becoming real because we have the real technology to do that.”

Shield impact on platforms

The pair also discussed the impact of the Shield and First Guardian collapse on platform trustees. While neither held the fund on their own platforms, they welcomed APRA’s move to improve the space and the responsibilities of platform trustees.

Macquarie has already agreed to pay $321 million in compensation to affected superannuation fund members while ASIC is also calling for Equity Trustees to do the same. The regulator’s proposed amendment remains subject to court approval; however, it would enable the lawsuit to go beyond civil penalties and also attempt to reclaim the losses stemming from the $160 million that members invested into Shield through its platforms.

Last week, APRA issued a letter to platform trustees calling on them to urgently improve their onboarding practices and monitoring to safeguard investments held on platforms. The prudential regulator acknowledged platform trustees may not manage each investment option, but they must exercise diligence, ensuring the platform’s investment menu as a whole is appropriate, each investment option is true to label, delivers value to members, and is underpinned by robust decision making and good governance.

Alcock said: “There will be a lift [of standards] and there should be a lift in some cases and it may affect some platform participants who need to lift their game. Certainly, the role of a trustee is being challenged.”

Maloney added: “But this is not going to stop demand for advice or adviser flows, they are charging on unabated and we’re not seeing any impact in terms of demand. We’ve run a large master trust for many years and been very focused on governance for a very long time.

“To lose credibility and trust in the industry would be the worst thing especially when we’ve spent such a long time rebuilding it. That would be an awful outcome but I don’t think that will happen.”

Both agreed the fallout from Shield did present an opportunity, however, for greater industry collaboration to avoid ‘bad actors’.

“When we have bad actors, we need to have a better collaboration among the industry and better line of communication among ourselves around calling out and identifying problems earlier,” Maloney said.