Associated Planners in Singapore

AssociatedPlannersis set to become the next Australian institution to make a move into the budding Asian financial services market, with the group preparing to sign off on a joint venture to launch a financial planning business in Singapore.

The joint venture, which is still being negotiated, will involve Associated Planners linking up with a group that has an existing life insurance presence in Singapore.

While the identity of the joint venture partner remains a closely guarded secret, it has been confirmed Associated Planners will be the junior partner in the deal.

The general manager of Associated Planners, Andrew Creaser, says the dealer group’s role will be to focus largely on applying its “intellectual capital” to help convert the Singapore-based group’s existing life insurance sales force into an advice based financial planning business.

The move will put Associated Planners on par with groups like the Norwich Union ownedNavigatorand Australia’s largest independent financial planning dealer group,Professional Investment Services(PIS), which has also made forays into Singapore over the last year.

Creaser says Singapore was chosen for Associated Planners’ first offshore venture because of new legislation governing the country’s financial services sector, which is modelled largely on Australia’s system of financial services regulation.

He says Australian groups were also attracted to Singapore because of its largely English speaking population, and because its small population of four million people made it “a comfortable size to launch in to”.

But Creaser says Associated Planners will also use Singapore as a test market ahead of possible plans to launch the dealer group across the Asia-Pacific region.

“If we can make it work in Singapore it will be a good test to see if we can make it in other markets. We have not done this for Singapore only,” he says.