Sanford signs up ING’s Optimix
Online financial services group,Sanford, has signed an agreement to provide its online share trading product, Virtual Broker, to Optimix Investment Management, a specialist multi-manager division of theING Group.
The deal will allow Optimix to offer the Virtual Broking service to financial advisers through ING’s wrap platform.
ING’s wrap service national product manager Therese Clarke says financial advisers and their clients are demanding access to more sophisticated online financial services.
She says advisers have come to expect online broking services as an integral component of any wrap platform.
“We believe [the agreement to offer Virtual Broker] will increase the services available to financial advisers allowing them to concentrate on adding value to investors rather than worrying about getting transactions completed,” Clarke says.
Sanford general manager Steven James heralded the agreement as another major step forward for the online trading service since it was launched in early 2000.
“Securing Optimix demonstrates Virtual Broker's success in supporting wrap platforms,” James says.
He says Virtual Broker had managed to capture a significant part of the financial planning and accounting markets since its release.
More than 112 accounting and financial planning groups and some 600 individual planners currently use Sanford’s Virtual Broker service.
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