Aon wraps with BT & Asgard
Aon Australia has moved to streamline its platform approach, announcing BT Financial Group’s Wrap service and Asgard's eWRAP and adviserNET products as the new core platforms for its advisers.
Prior to the move, advisers in Aon’s two financial planning arms - Aon Financial Planning and Protection and Aon Wealth Management - had used a multiple platform approach.
Aon managing director Greg Dunger says the switch followed review of its existing platform providers.
Dunger says the group's previous policy of allowing advisors to use a full range of administration platforms had been rationalised in favour of the new strategy, which would allow the group to negotiate better platform deals for its advisers.
"The group is now at the point where there should be real benefits to us and investors though negotiating favourable supplier relationships," Dunger says.
"By outsourcing time consuming and complex administration and compliance, we're ensuring our advisers can spend more time with clients while exercising industry best practice," Dunger says.
The group is quick to point out that despite the deal, the Aon dealer groups would retain their non-aligned stance.
Under the deal, Aon will re-badge both the BT and Asgard products and according to Dunger the alliances will enable Aon to better align the use of platforms to the needs of the dealer group.
"We sought to provide our advisers a premium platform offering dealer group input to future direction, giving our clients first rate administration and giving Aon a sense of ownership," he says.
BT head of distribution Chris Freeman says Aon's decision highlighted the shift by dealer groups towards consolidating their platform approach.
"Being a locally owned platform with significant scale gives clients peace of mind around consolidation so their rationale for using multiple platforms evaporates," Freeman says.
Aon is the most recent group to badge Asgard's eWRAP platform, following the adoption of the platforms by CPS Credit Union, Snowball Financial Services, and AMP groups Hillross and AMP Financial Planning.
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