There are three standout platforms dominating the platform market, based on adviser feedback, as the shrinking pool of advisers become a powerful arbiter.
In the Adviser Ratings Musical Chairs report for the second quarter of 2023, the research firm conducted a Platform Quarterly Driver Analysis Benchmark of advisers’ preferred platforms.
This was calculated based on their overall experience, functionality and support.
“The market challengers are continuing to innovate and build out their investment menu, while introducing features to improve both the adviser and client experience. At the same time, the financial advice workforce has become smaller and advisers have become a more powerful arbiter of the investment tools they use. As a result, we are now seeing a shift,” it said.
The top three platforms based on advisers’ experience were: HUB24, Netwealth and CFS FirstChoice.
The first two platforms won praise for their range of investment options, adviser experience and functionality, while CFS FirstChoice was ranked highly for client experience and ease of onboarding.
Looking at platform penetration, these three platforms were also used by most advisers.
Adviser Ratings particularly singled out HUB24 as having grown its market share from 10 per cent in 2021 to 32 per cent this year. The platform, led by managing director Andrew Alcock, is also tipped to receive the highest proportion of adviser inflows over the next three to six months followed by Netwealth and Praemium.
“This skew [to HUB24] is reflective of advisers’ propensity to adopt new solutions while being indicative of new flows and activity within the market.”
At the other end of the scale, Asgard and MLC Navigator are likely to see more outflows which Adviser Ratings suggests could be picked up by BT Panorama and Insignia.
It also noted CFS will likely continue to gain share with the launch of its Edge platform last month.
“BT Panorama and CFS (on the back of its launch of Edge) are the platforms the market and advisers are keeping an eye on over the coming six months given the market share they currently hold. BT Panorama’s effective relaunch and CFS’ Edge launch with a managed account focus and open architecture will signal a new round for innovation for platforms.”
According to Morningstar their balanced fund is the best performed multi sector growth fund in the last decade so despite the initial headaches you have done your client a huge favour.
TTR, didn’t adviser stop using them when they lost the tax concessions many years ago ? Can’t remember the last time I heard that strategy
Hi Tony, the performance comparisons made by groups like Morningstar, Chant West, Superratings are all meaningless because they accept the asset allocation that’s given to them by the super funds as being accurate when they’re not e.g. Hostplus Balanced is 93% growth assets but gets compared against a true Balanced option in say Vanguard with 50% growth assets. That’s a different argument however. All I was saying was that Industry Fund administration and service levels are the poorest in the financial services industry by a long long way, making it very difficult to deal with them.
RE: TTR – I take it you’re not an Adviser? the effectiveness of the TTR strategy is the same as it’s always been. The only thing that’s changed is the reinstatement of the 15% earnings tax on TTR accounts, but shifting to a zero tax environment was only ever a side effect of the strategy, not the overarching reason to use it.
industry funds are the best platforms, low fees, low complexity and great returns.
I can’t tell if this is sarcasm or not? Industry Fund are horrific to deal with. I set up a TTR pension account with Australian Super a while back, the client was already with them and it still took 6 weeks to get the pension set up. Had to recalculate all the pension payment and salary sacrifice amounts. Just horrible.
Hahaha BT Panorama’s relaunch…. this platform is worse than their old platform. Why are BT not selling their business anymore, because no one in their right mind wants to buy it. I’d like to see the numbers of outflows, BT would be next in line with AMP.
I’m amazed that any adviser would use CFS after they employed Josh Frydenberg’s Chief of Staff , the architect of the diminished adviser numbers , increased costs and red-tape we now face, to their executive team.