Neville Ward to expand into planning

Neville Ward Direct (NWD), the nation’s largest direct marketer of managed funds is set to launch a financial planning service through an arrangement with Queensland based financial planning group Barbacan Benefits.

NWD DIY Investor manager Cameron Farrar says the financial planning service delivered by Barbacan Benefits will come under the NWD banner and will be a full time service for the group’s 70,000 clients.

“There will be an interview process, looking at the needs of the client. Barbacan Benefits will analyse the person, and deliver a process and products for the client,” he says.

The NWD Financial Planning Service, in development for a number of months, will fill a niche market and provide further value for NWD clients says Farrar who will deal directly with the planning group in order to develop a relationship with the adviser and remove the extra steps from the advisory process in line with the NWD philosophy.

Barbacan Benefits won the right to supply its financial planning services to NWD clients when it was identified out of 15 contenders, three of which were seriously considered, as offering the best service to clients.

“We did some of our own analysis, cold calling groups to find out about their service, and an independent research house also did some analysing. Barbacan Benefits was chosen because of its service to clients, that was the most impressive thing, and the costs. And it was a product Neville Ward was happy to offer its clients,” Farrar says.

The independent ownership status of Barbacan Benefits was also a factor in the group’s success.

“A lot of clients come to us from financial planners, disenchanted with them and the products recommended because of their relationships with fund managers,” Farrar says.

The financial planning service carries an up front fee for service paid directly to Barbacan Benefits with an equity split held by Neville Ward. While not disclosing the cost to investors, Farrar says there will be three styles of plans developed; standard, complex and advanced, determined on a range of points including investable assets.

He says the sevice will be heavily discounted compared to others in the market, and a strong uptake is expected.

Barbacan Benefits executive director David Keys says it will not expand its planner numbers to deal with the expected increase in clients which it estimates to be 300 over the next 12 months. He says Barbacan would rely on its technology developments to cope with the influx of new business.