Westpac to launch new dealer group
The Westpac Banking Corporation is believed to be preparing to launch a new financial planning dealer group that will be staffed exclusively by independent financial advisers and eschew the Westpac logo altogether.
In a major strategic shift for the bank, the non-Westpac branded dealer group is expected to recruit independent advisers in an attempt to meet the bank’s previously stated ambition to grow its planning operations by up to 40 per cent over the next year.
The new entity, to be called the Catalyst Financial Group, will sit alongside Westpac’s existing internal planning division, Westpac Planning and Advice, in an arrangement similar to AMP’s relationship with its wholly owned external dealer group, Hillross.
Westpac has employed Sue Laing, the former managing director of life insurance and financial planning group IFMA, to head up Catalyst. Laing spent more than a decade building up IFMA, but left the group in late 2000 soon after its then owner, Norwich Union, sold it to Professional Investment Services (PIS).
It is not yet clear what repercussions the launch of Catalyst will have on Westpac’s 750 existing planners, and the bank is remaining tight-lipped about its exact plans for the new dealer group.
A spokesperson for Westpac last week refused to confirm the bank’s plans to launch the new dealer group, saying only that the bank was assessing the feasibility of employing independent financial advisers.
However Money Management has learned that Westpac has already registered the Catalyst Financial Group business name. Sources also say Laing, who is believed to have joined Westpac just before Christmas, was recruited for the specific task of developing a strategy to attract independent advisers to the bank.
Westpac Financial Services group executive David Clarke also flagged the possibility of Westpac extending its distribution network to include independent advisers at a strategy briefing for the bank last August.
The decision to launch a new dealer group comes after a year when Westpac turned its back on the opportunity to purchase a number of outside planning groups.
In an interview with Money Management earlier this year, Westpac head of Financial Planning and Advice Brett Himbury indicated the bank had become frustrated at the prices being asked by the dealer groups it was pursuing.
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