‘Rising tide lifts all boats’ for platforms amid advice boom

Platforms are aiming to stand out by helping advisers achieve scale in their practices, offering an even greater range of services rather than competing on fees.

In its latest annual report, which surveyed 18 platforms, research house SuitabilityHub explored trends appearing in the platform market.

These are:

• The battle against complexity
• Expanding adviser capabilities
• Driving industry growth

Comparing this year’s report to the previous one, managing director of SuitabilityHub, Recep Peker, said a standout difference this year is the lesser focus on fee competition among platforms. The focus now, it said, is ensuring they are offering a wide range of features to help their adviser clients.

Peker said: “In previous reports, there was a big focus on the price war where they were all competing on costs, whereas now they are trying to develop a value proposition as an alternative way of growing their presence in the space.

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“Advisers are getting ready to grow. The opportunity is vast, and platforms can play a role in this. They say ‘a rising tide lifts all boats’, and platforms are willing to invest in growing the advice market as that will benefit them as well.

“Super funds, wealth managers, ETF issuers are all looking to enter the space. It just makes sense as there is this untapped growth opportunity and they want to help.”

This includes expanding digital self-service capabilities, simplifying multistep workflows, and introducing next-generation bulk processing tools to reduce advisers’ administrative effort. 

For example, HUB24’s solution helps practices better prepare for periods with high volumes of activity and streamlines the management of fee consents across multiple clients at once. Over at North, its Interactive Review tool replaces static reports with a digital presentation which enhances advisers’ client engagement. 

“It used to be the case that platforms only offered administration and custody, but over the years, they have grown to add more features. The Australian platform market stands out compared to the US where there are more specialist solutions and advisers build their own individual tech stack, whereas Australian platforms have more features themselves.

“We don’t have all these individual providers here. It wouldn’t be profitable for firms to be so niche as the platforms have greater reach.”

While the greater number of services and features offered could lead to the idea of a one-stop shop, Peker said it was unlikely that advisers would ever solely use just one platform to meet all their needs. 

He gave the example of advice licensee Infocus which has set up a platform called Platformplus Wealth Management System that includes the tools advisers need to run their business, such as compliance management, revenue management, automated workflow and client engagement tools.