Asgard scouts for corporate planners

Asgard is seeking to access and support up to 15 dealer groups with at least $20 million under administration who are interested in entering the corporate superannuation market.

According to Asgard business super national distribution manager Robert Bergin, it is a strategy that reflects the increasing role financial planners are starting to take in the corporate superannuation marketplace.

“Financial planning groups are getting into the business super market and they are saying, ‘we will be your representative’. The service provider is becoming irrelevant,” he says.

Bergin says the old business model where corporates accessed their superannuation through a service provider, is starting to fall down in a number of areas including the co-ordination of the delivery of services and their regular changes in staff.

“The new model is a value proposition where financial planners are front-of-house and are saying we will co-ordinate this. It is about using them as the packager of financial services for a company,” he says.

Bergin says those financial planning groups that have woken up to why superannuation is valuable business will be suited to taking their services to the corporate market.

However, infrastructure and resources are also an important consideration. Bergin says geographical presence, internal structure, and practices with 4-5 financial planning staff and 2-3 senior relationship managers are in a good position to take the next step.

In return for their investment, financial planners will attract larger sums of money, adding to their funds under administration, as well as commission trail on group life insurance.

Bergin says Asgard has been speaking to planning groups over the past four months and it is committed to the strategy, which has been incorporated into its business super department.