Big banks now also-rans in platform space
In what represents almost a reversal in the platform dominance stakes, the banks have been trumped by the minnows.
The latest data from Investment Trends reveals HUB24, Netwealth and Praemium sitting atop the list of platforms preferred for their features when, less than a decade ago, the top three positions were dominated by bank platforms such as the CFS, Macquarie Wrap and Asgard.
These days the big bank wraps are still mostly in play, but they have been supplanted by the technological agility of the newcomers.
The Investment Trends 2020 Platform Benchmarking & Competitive Analysis report had confirmed the degree to which fortunes have been reversed,
It said that for overall platform functionality ranking, HUB24 had marginally overtaken Netwealth for top spot, with consistently strong results across all six assessed categories. In a close second position, Netwealth continued to perform strongly in four out of six categories. Industry wide, the five top-ranking full-function platforms are:
- HUB24 (overall score of 89.0%)
- Netwealth (88.9%)
- Praemium (84.8%)
- BT Panorama (82.4%)
- Macquarie Wrap (76.5%)
The Investment Trends report found that platforms were responding to calls from financial advisers to better support their socially distanced advice processes, with notable functionality improvements around electronic signatures and digital acceptance tools.
Commenting on the report findings, Investment Trends Associate Research Director, King Loong Choi said the platform industry was continuing to drive innovation and functionality improvements from the back-end to front-end, which was especially vital as financial advisers and their clients adjusted to a social distanced way of living.
Referring to the platform functionality scores, Choi said the narrow difference highlighted the intense competition between the leading platforms, many of which had made meaningful refinements to their product offering, reporting, decision support tools and integration in the last 12 months.
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