Perpetual’snew investment platform has hit the ground running by launching with three dealer groups already signed to the system.
The WealthFocus master trust went live yesterday, with the three groups —Premium Accounting, AusPlan Financial Services and Elders Securities — provding access to the platform for their advisers after adding the platform to its recommended list.
Perpetual general manager adviser distribution Damien Crowley says the three groups had committed to WealthFocus in early October during the pre-launch phase of its rollout and will result in more than 250 advisers having access to the low-costplatform.
Crowley says Perpetual is also in discussions with a fourth large dealer group and expects it to join the other groups when it signs next week.
Dealer groups using the WealthFocus platform will not sign a service agreement, as Crowley says it is not an IDPS service but a master trust service based on an administration system, Composer, supplied by back-office provider InfoComp.
As a result of this set-up, Perpetual has already moved its Growth Series retail funds, allocated pensions and superannuation and rollover products into the platform, kick-starting its funds under management to the tune of $4 billion.
Crowley says this means that all clients of those funds get the full features of WealthFocus automatically, as do the advisers servicing those clients and their holdings.
The Investor Choice range of products will remain outside the platform for the time being as it holds a different tax structure and Perpetual is reviewing whether the products can make the transfer into the master trust.
Crowley says despite the market being flooded with low cost platforms Perpetual will attract users to the platform through its simplicity and advisers will not have to re-engineer their processes to use it.
“We found most advisers don’t use the web, it is their support staff. This means most advisers don’t use the facilities that are available on their current platforms,” Crowley says.
“It is compatible with 90 per cent of dealer approved lists and includes portfolio modelling which is what advisers want.”
