Securitor out from Asgard’s shadow
St George Bank-owned dealer group Securitor has re-branded its corporate colours and logo in an effort to distinguish itself in what it sees as a highly competitive and yet highly generic marketplace.
The re-branding, announced to media at a presentation in Sydney yesterday, follows a Securitor study earlier this year that found a quarter of financial advisers could not name a single dealer group they would consider joining.
Speaking at yesterday’s presentation, Securitor head Neil Younger said the dealer group aimed to position itself ahead of the competition and fast-track its growth strategy by enabling its adviser network to address key industry challenges, such as improving profitability in an advice-hungry yet challenging marketplace and attracting and developing planners in a shrinking labour pool.
Younger said the re-branding is designed to bring Securitor out from the shadow of parent group Asgard Wealth Solutions and assist it in its revised growth strategy.
Younger said the re-branding, called ‘growth through partnership’, incorporates several strategies for recruiting new planners.
Securitor already has a program in place for bringing St George Financial Planning planners across to Securitor and honing their skills in key areas as well as an academy-style program for recruiting and training new graduates and is working on a model designed to make it easier for planners from other groups to transfer to Securitor.
“We just can’t compete with other dealer groups for planners, so we’re looking at new, alternative sources. It’s about connecting some of the dots we previously hadn’t connected.
“We are working on a program, which I can’t go into much detail about at this stage, but … will facilitate the transition of clients from outside the network and into Securitor practices.”
Younger said he expected to be able to release further details about the new program by January next year.
Asgard Wealth Solutions head of wealth management distribution and sales Wayne Wilson said the program would seek to identify individual planners’ unique skills and talents and develop them accordingly.
“Previous models might have discounted these people, but we believe we can create different positions for people with different skill sets … It’s about identifying the skills people do have and developing them to a higher level,” he said.
As part of Securitor’s re-branding, it has chosen a new corporate colour (green to signify growth) and logo (two links joined in an ‘S’ formation to symbolise partnership). Securitor advisers have 12 months to update their stationary and promotional material in accordance with the re-branding, however, a number of incentives have been introduced to encourage them to do so before March 31 next year.
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