Macquarie tops platform rankings
Macquarie Wrap has unseated Colonial First State at the top of the annual Wealth Insights Platform Service Level rankings.
The rankings, released exclusively to Money Management, reveal that with respect to Best Platform Service Offerings, financial planners ranked Macquarie Wrap Manager at number one, while Macquarie Wrap Consolidator was ranked at number two, with Colonial First Wrap being bumped to number three, with Colonial FirstChoice ranked at number four.
AMP Limited's North Platform was ranked at number five.
In the Best Fund Manager Service Offerings category, however, Colonial First State retained its top ranking followed by Magellan, Vanguard, Perpetual and Fidelity.
Commenting on outcome, Wealth Insights managing director, Vanessa McMahon, noted that while those advisers surveyed by her company had anecdotally nominated other factors as being key to their decisions, functionality still remained the key determinant.
"IT/web functionality has a stronger bearing on advisers' satisfaction with platforms than advisers realise," she said.
Commenting on Macquarie's return to the top of the rankings, Head of Wealth Product for Macquarie's Banking and Financial Services Group, Justin Delaney, said he believed it reflected the company's evolutionary approach and the close attention it paid to the needs of advisers.
He said that while recent announcements around the inclusion of separately managed accounts and international investment options had undoubtedly helped, he believed a greater factor had been integrated nature of the products together with training and technical support.
Importantly, the Wealth Insights research suggested Delaney's perceptions were correct, with administrative efficiency and value being ranked second and third influencers for planners behind functionality.
Best Platform Service Offerings 2015:
- Macquarie Wrap Manager
- Macquarie Wrap Consolidator
- Colonial FirstWrap
- Colonial FirstChoice
- North
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