Most planners loyal to one provider

According to research consultancy CoreData, with the majority of financial planners showing loyalty to one main platform, platform providers trying to increase market share face a fierce battle.

CoreData’s research shows that just over 50 per cent of financial planners allocate more than 80 per cent of client funds via one main platform.

But CoreData’s Craig Phillips said there are still opportunities for platforms to increase their market share in Australia, despite the “near saturation of adviser use” and prevalence of “dealer group tie-ups and preferential white labelling”. But Phillips also said that new growth would be at the expense of platforms that “fall out of favour, as the market is in a mature stage of development”.

This is particularly likely to occur where planners have access to two or more platforms. CoreData’s research shows almost 75 per cent of planners have access to two or more platforms, with the average number used being 2.6 per planner.

Phillips said platforms today are forced to “fight urban warfare” involving “many separate battles at a localised level from advice group to advice group”.

Phillips said the challenge for new platform providers is to “outshine an adviser’s ‘primary’ choice and essentially make it easy for advisers to wean themselves away from their main preferred platform”.

The research included more than 1,400 platform users.