BT’s $12 million planner growth spend
Westpac's half-year result has given a glimpse of what it has so far cost the big banking group to drive harder into the financial planning arena, including the turf war that followed the Commonwealth Bank's acquisition of Count Financial Limited.
The result, released to the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) today, revealed that "strategic investment" had added $12 million to expenses "including expansion of the distribution network, particularly financial planners and their support staff and private bankers".
But the investment appears to have paid dividends for the banking group, with BT Financial Group having increased cash earnings over the same period last year to $345 million, and with advice income growing 13 per cent or $16 million in the period.
Count Financial chief executive David Lane told Money Management earlier this week that the flurry of activity which had been associated with the Commonwealth Bank's acquisition of Count had ended some months ago and that BT had, in fact, been a sponsor of the recent Count conference in Cairns.
However, BT is understood to have remained acquisitive and to have picked up some of the practices which departed the Australian Financial Services Group before it entered administration.
AUTHOR
Mike Taylor
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