Asgard takes out Assirts’ top prize

The Asgardmaster trust has taken out the top prize in this year’s Assirt Service Level awards after being voted the best investment platform in the country by financial planners.

The awards, into their 11th year, were voted on by 577 financial planners picked at random from across the country.

Assirt market research manager Vanessa McMahon says Asgard was singled out by advisers for the quality of its communications, its business development manager (BDM) support and its administration.

Asgard was closely followed by the Macquarie Wrap and BT Portfolio Services, which finished second and third respectively. However, the big loser was Norwich Union’s Navigator master trust. The platform, which took out the top award last year, did not make it into the top five this year.

Over the past 12 months, Navigator has been plagued by problems with its PlanIt financial planning software.

Asgard was matched by Colonial First State, which took out the Assirt Service Level award in the funds management category.

Colonial won the award for the second year running, beating out rivals Macquarie, Perpetual, Challenger and Advance.

Platinum, however, finished bottom of the list of fund managers in the Assirt awards, even though those advisers polled judged it to have the best asset management capabilities in the country.

The poll also found that financial planners are becoming more likely to shop around between service providers.

The average number of fund managers used by advisers surveyed for the Assirt awards jumped from 4.1 last year to 6.3 this year, while the average number of platforms used rose from 1.3 to 1.6.

“Advisers are shopping around. Client retention can only be increased by giving customers a stronger reason to stay. By identifying those service criteria that are of most and least importance to advisers, organisations can increase the levels of satisfaction on the right attributes. This will drive down lost business and drive growth,” McMahon says.