Greg Dunger
ING Financial Planning (INGFP) and ING’s largest dealer group, RetireInvest, will be combining their back-office operations from January, next year.
Under the move, the two groups will retain their individual branding and separate licenses, but the compliance, paraplanning and marketing operations will be amalgamated.
“We saw it was more beneficial to have it all run out of the one office. Previously, everything was separate … There’s a lot of synergy that can be drawn by having a single back-office,” said RetireInvest managing director Greg Dunger.
Aside from cost-benefits, the reasoning behind the decision was to restructure the current succession arrangement for financial planners employed by RetireInvest and INGFP.
Whereas the original plan was for advisers to start with INGFP and over time move across to the more mature market-segment serviced by RetireInvest, in reality this was not occurring.
“Previously there were two businesses set separately, and while there was the intention for that alignment, it really wasn’t happening,” Dunger said.
According to Dunger, the new arrangement will give advisers greater opportunities to work across various platforms. He explained that planners with INGFP deal with clients with more streamlined, specific needs on the one ING platform, whereas RetireInvest has a more open architecture using multiple platforms.
The restructure will also see the appointment of two distinct national distribution managers overseeing salaried and franchisee advisers across the two groups.
Andrew Kennedy will manage all salaried planners for INGFP and RetireInvest, while Peter Ornsby will manage those under franchise arrangements.
A chief operating officer has also been appointed, with Michael Scutts moving across from AON.
