Dealer groups sign with Mercer IS Super
Rashmi Mehrotra
Mercer Investment Consulting has signed up Genesys Wealth Advisers and Consultum Financial Planners to its new superannuation research tool, Mercer IS Super.
Mercer Investment Consulting Head of Retail Services, Rashmi Mehrotra, said the deal will see Genesys’ 450 advisers and the IOOF’s affiliated dealer group, Consultum’s 130 advisers given direct access to Mercer’s superannuation database.
Mercer IS Super has the ability to compare the critical features of more than 80 superannuation funds including industry funds.
“Signing these two prominent dealer groups is a significant boost for Mercer IS Super, as it has only been available in its first version for a few months and in both instances, it was selected following a thorough review of the market,” Mehrotra said.
“The initial response from the industry has been very positive, with several major dealer groups now using the service,” she said.
IOOF senior research manager, Paul O’Connor, said one of the key features that attracted IOOF to join Mercer IS Super is the tool’s indicative star rating on each investment option in the fund.
“This is based on a weighted average of the Mercer ratings on the underlying managers and since Mercer ratings are forward looking it provides advisers access to qualitative research on multi-manager funds,” O’Connor said.
Mehrotra said phase two of Mercer IS Super would be launched soon.
“This will include a fee calculator allowing advisers to explicitly compare the cost of advice and a dealer specific MS Word template that will allow advisers to easily incorporate the research into their statements of advice.
“We will continue to work with our clients to further improve the product, with phase three of development set to include insurance premium calculators,” she said.
News of Genesys Wealth Advisers and Consultum Financial Planners signing up to Mercer’s IS Super comes just a week after Mercer expanded its relationship with Macquarie Wealth Management. Under the terms of the new arrangement, Mercer will provide the dealer group with two levels of service — a consulting service to the centralised research team and an adviser research package through access to Mercer IS.
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