Centric aims for one platform solution

Independant financial planning dealer group Centric Wealth is reviewing its platform offerings for clients with a view to formulating one platform solution for all of its authorised representatives to use.

Centric has achieved much of its growth through acquisition and this strategy has seen the advisory group having to continue to service many of the platforms offered by the newly attained planning practices.

Manager best practice and administration services with Centric, Jennifer McDermott, said: “We use about eight or nine different platform providers, which we think is unsustainable for us, so we’re in the process of narrowing that down.”

As part of the exercise, Centric is assessing all of the platform providers in the market in an effort to identify a single provider that can deliver the dealer group the best customised solution for its clients’ needs and with which it can enter into a partnership.

“Every client’s situation is going to be different, so we’re not going to be switching clients in bulk groups and we’re not mandating that clients have to move. Advisers are going to have to go through, for every single client, the advice process to identify the consequences of moving because there will be clients for who there would be a consequence to move,” McDermott said.

“So the second part of the project we’re working on is the management of clients on what we call the legacy platforms because you can’t just pick them up and move them,” she added.

In light of these parameters, Centric is aware the legacy platforms may have to be kept operating for some time.

“There’s no prescribed timeframe [for the legacy products to cease operation] because of the different clients we have sitting on these different platforms. We don’t have a drop dead date in mind for when these have to go because there can be situations where that’s just not achievable.”

Centric is hopeful the new single platform will be ready for clients to use on January 1, 2007.