ETF providers queuing to list on ASX Aqua platform

Up to 10 exchange traded funds (ETF) have expressed interest in listing on the Australian Securities Exchange’s (ASX's) new Aqua platform, joining three providers that have listed to date, according to general manager, equity markets, Richard Murphy.

“We now have a critical mass of ETF issuers on the platform and there are another 10 sniffing around, some of them with ideas that go right down to the weird and wonderful,” he said.

Murphy was speaking yesterday at the launch of Vanguard Investment’s suite of three ETFs, which will compete on the Aqua platform against those of BTI, iShares and State Street.

The new products are the Vanguard Australian Shares Index ETF, the Vanguard All-World ex-US Shares Index ETF and the Vanguard US Total Market Shares Index ETF.

He said the platform now has good market drivers that are competing to be the best and win the most business and, in doing so, drive not only retail but institutional volumes into ETFs.

Volumes are also benefitting from an ongoing drift by financial planners away from commissions as a remuneration model into fee-for-service, he added.

“Planners initially weren’t interested in selling ETFs because they are super cheap compared to managed funds and there is no room for trailing commissions.

“Now we are getting an awful lot more planners at the ASX seminars who are reporting a move to fee-for-service, and they are more willing to look at ETFs.”