Credit Suisse unveils new platform

Credit Suisse Asset Management (CSAM) has finally launched its new platform, MasterWrap, almost a year after signalling its intent to push into what has become an increasingly congested sector of the market.

The offering, which is being targeted at independent financial advisers and will be available as of Monday, is seeking to differentiate itself from other providers in the market by claims its delivers “true straight through processing” to advisers.

The STP component of MasterWrap, which allows advisers to set-up clients and monitor transactions in real-time, has been created to combine IWL's Visiplan front-end software with InfoComp's back-end Composer technology.

CSAM has a short-term exclusivity deal with IWL, however once this expires over coming months those platforms which use Visiplan and have a compatible back-end system are likely to follow suit in offering advisers STP functionality.

The development is a bonus for the industry according to CSAM distribution head Brian Thomas as it will help to create efficiencies and drive costs down.

"We didn't want to launch a me-too master trust. We wanted to offer something to make the industry more efficient. Given most inflows are now through master trusts we felt automating this process is important if you want an efficient industry," Thomas says.

The platform has a sliding administration fee scale ranging from 0.45 per cent for amounts between $5,000 and $250,000, falling to 0.05 per cent for amounts of $2 million and over. For the super component of the wrap, which is run through a master trust structure, there is a 1 per cent adviser fee rolled into the cost of the platform.

For the remaining investment and pension components, the adviser fee can be set after the client and adviser agree on a figure and can later be dialled up or down.

MasterWrap has 90 investment options - 17 are CSAM options - and access to 20 fund managers.

"We're not trying to be the dominant player in the platform market, we just want a successful master trust targeting independent advisers," Thomas says.

MasterWrap will also have a Partnership Savings Account (PSA), which is a holding account for any rebates given by fund managers ahead of being used to reduce the platform administration fee paid by clients.