Which platforms enjoyed the highest FUA rise?

Money Management examines the funds under administration (FUA) growth of three listed Australian wealth management platforms for FY24.

Over the past month, three of Australia’s largest platform names – Netwealth, HUB24 and Praemium – have released their results for the 2023–24 financial year.

All three names announced their growth plans for the year ahead and saw a notable increase in their FUA. The top two platforms tied in first place with an FUA growth of 30 per cent each.

Praemium

Announcing its results on Monday (26 August), Praemium enjoyed an FUA rise of 30 per cent to $57.4 billion from $44 billion in FY23.

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The strong result helped it achieve a revenue growth of 12 per cent to $84.9 million from $76 million in the previous financial year – including $2.4 million generated from the OneVue acquisition.

However, Praemium also saw yearly net outflows of $183 million – largely due to outflows of $876 million from its Powerwrap division as advisers continue to transition away.

Anthony Wamsteker, Praemium chief executive, said the firm is looking at the platform migration occurring in the advice industry, with advisers looking to switch platform providers as a key avenue for future growth.

“We will be capturing a decent chunk of the [adviser] migration that’s going on, let alone the organic growth of the wealth management sector as a whole. The whole industry is growing, but within the industry, there is still significant migration from older platforms to the platforms that are more highly rated, and we want to make sure we do well in that space,” he explained.

HUB24

Over at HUB24, the platform also announced an FUA growth of 30 per cent for FY24 to $104.7 billion from $80.3 billion in FY23.

This was helped by a 62 per cent rise in annual platform net inflows from $9.7 billion a year ago to reach $15.8 billion, thanks to a $1.8 billion large migration from Equity Trustees which led to $5 billion in quarterly net platform inflows in the fourth quarter.

Based on the expectation of ongoing inflows, the firm said it is targeting a platform FUA range for FY26 of $115 billion to $123 billion. This will comprise net flows of more than $11 billion per annum, excluding large migrations.

Commenting on the results, HUB24 chief executive Andrew Alcock said the platform race is “ours to lose”.

“The sentiments I hear from advisers and licensees are around our value proposition, our attitude, and our customer service and our footprint is increasing. I think it’s the result of us executing well on our strategy, and we need to keep doing that and keep delivering customer service excellence,” he remarked.

“It’s ours to grow, or ours to lose.”

Netwealth

Netwealth recorded a slightly lower FUA rise, in comparison to its competitors, of 25 per cent to $88 billion from $70.3 billion in FY23.

The platform welcomed net inflows of $11.2 billion, up from $9.9 billion a year ago, and positive market movement of $6.5 billion. Meanwhile, platform revenue was $249.5 million, a growth of 18 per cent from $211.5 million a year ago.

Netwealth chief executive Matt Heine commented that the firm saw a “strong start to the year”.

“2023 was a pretty tough year, we recorded good inflows but a lot of transitions that we had won were paused. These have really started to gather pace in FY24. So the backlog of opportunity and business transition from FY23 has kickstarted,” Heine said.

“We are confident in our outlook and future growth opportunities which we believe are very significant.”