ANZ rethinks relationship strategies as open market shrinks
Financial planning dealer groups need to rethink relationship-building strategies as consolidation forces the open market to shrink, according to ANZ general manager advice and distribution Paul Barrett.
Consolidation is driving a rethinking of relationships in what is now a "contestable and competitive market," Barrett said.
"All the major players are in the same boat…we built our businesses on the open market and the open market is now closing," he said.
Barrett said independent financial planners and large groups were consolidating and aligning with institutions, and as boutique dealer groups spring up in opposition, it is important that ANZ reconsider the company's relationship with them.
"You're seeing smaller boutiques start up who don't want to be part of this institutional consolidation and that, I think, is a good thing because it actually fosters competition," Barrett said.
"As a product provider you have to have a strategy for dealing with those boutique groups as they start up, and the strategy has to be a bit different and it's pretty competitive," he said.
"We need to do some different things for that market."
Barrett said part of ANZ's restrategising involved considering dealership-to-dealership services and whether ANZ would provide third party support, but the company would not "try to be all things to all people".
"We need to be very specific about what our value proposition is across the wealth value chain and certainly insurance and superannuation is at the core of that," he said.
Barrett said ANZ was also focused on relationships with their financial planning business - approximately 8000 independent financial planners and aligned dealer groups - and was working to provide everything they would need to "survive a FOFA world".
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