Platforms jostle for adviser attention
On the same day that Colonial First State went live with its new CFS Edge platform both BT Panorama HUB24 chose to promote improvements to their offerings.
In the case of HUB24 the company announced new data feeds and automation capabilities to assist advisers in their reports to clients, while BT Panorama announced enhancements including client reporting and its service request tracker application.
In the case of BT Panorama, the announcement followed the recent announcement that Westpac would be retaining the platform business after nearly two years during which it was deemed to be on a sales block.
In the case of HUB24 it was a case of announcing the roll out of new features.
In both cases, the platform businesses said that they had been listening to advisers and responding to their needs.
HUB24 said that with 51% of advisers manually preparing reporting on their clients’ non-custody assets, it was becoming increasingly important for advisers and their clients to integrate data from outside of the platform to deliver a complete picture of the clients’ wealth.
“The new features have been designed in collaboration with advisers and offer many benefits including saving advisers more time by leverage HUB24’s data and technology capability to create efficiencies, increase client engagement and deliver value,” HUB24 chief product and innovation officer, Craig Apps said.
BT chief executive, Matt Rady discussed the Panorama improvements as resulting from having listened to advisers’ feedback.
He noted that BT had recently conducted a survey on the top challenges advisers are facing and that for the majority rising costs bases, pressure on profitability, deteriorating economic and market conditions and regulatory change were the major challenges.
Except Macquarie Wrap, they simply continue to rely on robots that don’t work and refuse to employ people that can process anything without problems these days.
Avoid Macquarie Wrap if you have the chance.