Dealer groups join Internet goldrush

Australia’s biggest financial planning groups are lining up to grab a share of the e-commerce space by launching online share trading services.

Australia’s biggest financial planning groups are lining up to grab a share of the e-commerce space by launching online share trading services.

Count Wealth Accountants and Hillross Financial Services have already signed up with service providers and both already have some of their advisers trading shares on behalf of clients. AMP Financial Services is in talks with a service provider with a view to launching a service in a few months. Professional Investment Services is understood to be on the verge of announcing a ma-jor deal including an online trading service.

Hillross has signed on with the Hartley Poynton offshoot JDV for back office support for its new service. Hartley Poynton is also understood to be in talks with a number of other financial plan-ning groups with a view to expanding their customer base.

Count has signed on with Sanford Securities to provide the group’s 1000 advisers with access to online share trading using Sanford’s back office services. More than 70 Count advisers have al-ready signed up for the service and about 240 have completed accreditation to use the service.

Under the terms of the deal, Count will re-badge Sanford’s Virtual Broker service as Count On-line Broking. Count members will pay $29.88 for each trade up to $10,000 and 0.288 per cent thereafter.

Count managing director Barry Lambert says the move is not designed to turn Count advisers into stockbrokers.

“This is not about becoming stockbrokers but rather about servicing clients better,” he says.

“In the past, we have had to go through the laborious process of faxing stock brokers our client’s orders and then waiting approval. This service gives the advisers straight through processing which means the adviser can execute a trade and issue a contract with the client still in front of you.”

Lambert says the introduction of the service is a precursor to a major Count online financial services offensive. The group will launch a consumer site in a few months called Wealthy Shares that will offer share trading plus a referral service to the group’s 1000 financial planners and ac-countants around the country.

Lambert acknowledges the price per trade is at the upper end of the online share trading scale but says the benefits of straight through processing and the record keeping facilities more than counteract the pricing difference.

Count estimates that about 10-15 per cent of the $100 million it invests each month on behalf of clients is made up of direct shares. Lambert believes the percentage of direct share investments is set to grow.

“Within 12 months, it will increase dramatically on that, I expect,” he says.

Lambert says the group is still on track for a listing on the ASX in November. About 50 per cent of the group will be offered to the public, while its 500 practices and the Lambert family are ex-pected to make up the balance.