In her role as Advisory Board Chair, Ms Brennan will continue to be actively involved in the business with a key focus on strategy and partnerships whilst also supporting Mr Blewitt on an orderly transition.

“The Investment Trends team does a phenomenal job in supporting our clients through the provision of our unique statistically driven insights. Over the last few years, we have evolved our product, geographies, and technology and I look forward to the opportunity of continuing to support the business as we accelerate our strategic evolution,” said Ms Brennan.

“I am thrilled to welcome an executive of Eric’s experience as CEO. Eric has extensive wealth management and trading behavior experience as well as the entrepreneurial and can-do attitude that defines Investment Trends,” said Brennan. “Having worked with Investment Trends in the past, Eric is already well known and highly regarded by many of our clients and staff – he will hit the ground running.”

Mr Blewitt was previously CEO of AUSIEX; having successfully led its divestment from Commsec/CBA establishing the largest independent Wholesale broker in Australia as a standalone business positioning it for growth under new ownership.

“I am excited to be joining such a well-respected Global business whose work provides meaningful insights assisting its clients to shape their strategy through invaluable research & insights. I have seen the insights and value that Investment Trends can deliver to its clients and am very excited to lead the business in its next phase of growth,” said Blewitt.

Mr Blewitt has over 25 years of experience leading wealth management and financial markets businesses, working with Boards and regulatory bodies. Since joining CBA in 2003, Mr Blewitt has led and grown the CommSec Adviser Service business and was responsible for delivering sustainable growth across trading deposits and lending for the intermediated market.

Prior to CBA, Mr Blewitt Led Leveraged Equities where he was General Manager and Director. Accountable for steering the business through the Global finial crisis and playing an instrumental role in its acquisition of the Macquarie margin lending business. Mr Blewitt is a Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.

Investment Trends will continue serving clients domestically and internationally while pursuing growth in current and adjacent markets.

Sarah Brennan and Eric Blewitt’s appointments take effect Monday 31^st October 2022.

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Andrew Alcock

Collaborative action to drive transformation must be taken to enable financial advice to be more cost-effective and accessible, not only to help more Australians meet their individual financial goals but also provide broader benefits for the community as a whole.

In a documentary created by HUB24 and XY Adviser, industry leaders and advisers have called for affirmative action to ensure more Australians can access professional financial advice.

According to HUB24’s CEO, Andrew Alcock, the advice profession and industry providers have an obligation to work together to ensure financial advice is accessible for more Australians.

“Currently, we have a situation where a small percentage of Australians seek holistic advice from a regulated financial adviser, and it’s becoming harder and more expensive to access that service. In effect, we are creating a have and have-not situation.”

The documentary features industry leaders and advisers including Financial Services Council CEO Blake Briggs, AZ NGA CEO Paul Barrett, Investment Trends CEO Sarah Brennan, Money Mentor’s Adele Martin and Caboodle Financial Services Principal Peita Diamantidis.

Participants identified cost and the decreasing number of financial advisers as significant challenges for Australians in getting advice – factors which have been exacerbated by the complex regulatory environment and historical lack of investment in developing innovative technology solutions.

According to Mr Barrett, advisers and clients are bearing the brunt of complex regulatory obligations. “If you put yourself in the shoes of an adviser today, and the things they have to do before they can have a meaningful discussion about their client’s scenario and start helping them, there’s too much of a regulatory burden.”

The documentary participants collectively agreed both advisers and consumers will pay the price if we are not able to overcome these challenges as Australians will be more reliant on the government for financial support and unable to navigate the complexity of their finances.

“Without good financial advice, Australians miss out on the opportunity to plan for tomorrow, to have peace of mind, financial security and financial freedom,” said Mr Alcock.  “We really need to consider, with the complexity of the environment we are in and all of the regulations and compliance, are we actually preparing Australians for the future?”

The documentary also features comments by CoreData Global CEO Andrew Inwood, My Millennial Money podcast creator Glen James, FPA CEO Sarah Abood, AFR Wealth Editor Aleks Vickovich and Diverger General Manager of Operations and Technology, Sonya Choi La Rosa.  It highlights how financial education, reduced regulatory complexity and investment in developing integrated technology solutions for licensees and advisers can play a role in enabling the delivery of cost-effective financial advice.

“There is an amazing opportunity to build the foundations of the future, and leverage data and technology to reduce friction for licensees, advisers and customers to empower better financial futures for more Australians,” said Mr Alcock.

Participants agreed the way forward was to work together and alongside government and regulators, to break down existing barriers to advice and build a sustainable advice profession which will enable more Australians to benefit from financial advice.

Watch the documentary. 

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Sarah Brennan

Leading industry market research firm, Investment Trends, and independent global technology consultancy, Finura Group, are working together to deliver deep quantitative research and an enhanced experience for clients who want deep insights into the area of financial services technology.

Investment Trends is a financial services industry research company, specialising in delivering actionable insights and decision support to the world’s leading organisations. Finura Group is an independent global technology consultancy and is launching a Finura Insights division to support this partnership. Finura Group works with progressive financial services businesses to provide best practice digital advice frameworks and technology transformation systems.

The new alliance brings together a wealth of research experience and deep technology expertise, through a shared belief that financial services technology will continue to change rapidly for the benefit of financial intermediaries, and the end consumers. We have therefore chosen three areas of research to combine our capabilities and assist firms in adapting to this changing environment:

• Examining adviser’s evolving technology needs, key platform and planning software industry trends, drivers/barriers of selection and satisfaction with platforms. Recent Investment Trends research shows this is an area of increasing importance as evidenced by the 2021 Adviser Technology Needs Report showing that COVID has accelerated the use of digital tools in all areas and the uptake of digital engagement methods look set to stay, particularly online meetings, digital signatures, and email campaigns.
• Providing an in-depth review of recent developments in the Australian advice technology space, including a benchmark of functionality offered by established advice software providers. Advisers are seeking information around where they sit compared to their peers and areas for improvement. To support this, our 2020 Advice Technology study showed numerous acquisitions and new startups entering the space prompting the industry’s leading providers to rebrand and reposition through increased advertising and funding for adviser support activities.
• The latest developments in digital technology used to deliver wealth services to Australian retail consumers. We saw these developments through the results of our 2022 Digital Wealth research showing that with open banking enabling a fifth generation of digital wealth fintech start-ups, alongside the ongoing digital transformation of financial services, product providers, super funds and wealth managers are looking for better ways to engage with their users.

“This marks an important milestone for our business. We believe it’s a compelling combination of deep quantitative analysis and digital strategy which can drive the transformation of wealth management through technology,” says Peter Worn, Joint Managing Director of Finura Group.

“Investment Trends approach has always been to evolve our research to meet the changing needs of our clients and to keep ahead of the rapid evolution in the wealth technology space. Working with Finura Insights means that for both Investment Trends and Finura clients, we will deliver the best fusion of research and innovation in the technology space.” says Sarah Brennan, CEO at Investment Trends.

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Sarah Brennan

Fast-paced platform functionality development continued over the last 12 months, as abundantly evidenced in the just released Investment Trends annual Platform Benchmarking Report. Key focus areas included supporting advisers with regulatory change, digitisation, advice delivery, and practice efficiency.

Key notes:

• In a close tussle, Netwealth has clinched the No.1 overall score, trading places with HUB24 – last year’s winner
• Most platform scores increased over the last 12 months, reflecting a collective rise in standards across functionality, integration, and product innovation
• Platforms have this year explicitly focused on responding to advisers’ desire to better service wholesale clients

Leading research firm Investment Trends has launched its 2021 Platform Benchmarking and Competitive Analysis Report, now in its 18th year.

For overall platform functionality ranking, Netwealth just edged out HUB24 to re-claim the top spot in overall platform functionality. Industry wide, the five top-ranking full-function platforms are:

1. Netwealth (overall score of 91.5%)
2. HUB24 (91.1%)
3. Praemium (89.3%)
4. BT Panorama (85.1%)
5. Mason Stevens (82.6%)

All platforms reviewed in both the 2020 and 2021 reports showed an increase in their scores with Mason Stevens posting the largest relative increase in score of +8.9% over 2020. Macquarie Wrap, CFS First Choice, Praemium and North also posted solid improvements over their 2020 capabilities.

“As a collective, platforms are raising their game. An enormous capability uplift was observed across the board in the specific areas of reporting, data security and integration – all in a concerted effort to support the continued digitisation of adviser practices and their compounding compliance burden,” said Sarah Brennan, CEO at Investment Trends.

The past two years have been particularly charged with new regulatory requirements – fee consent, LIF, IDII and DDO. To better support advisers, platforms have focussed on embedded templates, reporting, comparison tools and educational resources.

“Platforms have emphatically heeded calls for support from advisers,” observed Brennan. “To address the new fee consent obligations, all platforms have offered digitised templates, enhanced tracking and notifications. With respect to DDO, we note with interest HUB24’s integrated online chat tool through which advisers can raise complaints and report significant dealings.”

With the covid-induced trend towards digital client engagement showing no sign of abating, platforms are finding innovative ways to stand out and be seen with notable focus on digital consent and workflow. All platforms are now integrated with digital signatures with Macquarie WRAP and Mason Stevens now offering the ability to track progress of their requests including date and time stamps.

“We are seeing advisers continue to bring more technology into their practices to generate efficiency gains which in turn is generating greater demand for integration and streamlining of the tech stack,” said Brennan. “Some platforms have responded by building planning tools while others have partnered with or acquired third party solutions.”

End-client mobile access was also materially improved with Wealth02 launching its mobile app and BT Panorama, CFS First Choice, Mason Stephens, Netwealth all refreshing their respective mobile front-end.

Separately and in acknowledgement of the move by advisers to focus on better servicing their HNW client base, platforms have enhanced their ability to identify sophisticated investors, strengthened their product offering and upgraded their reporting tools.

The growing importance of ESG was also illustrated in developments by BT Panorama, Macquarie WRAP and Praemium to allow advisers to compare ESG options. CFS First Choice and North have added ESG options as discrete investment strategies.

“These results showcase the agility with which all platforms have been able to respond to the dynamic business and regulatory environment. It is an exciting and fast moving space that we’ll continue watching with keen interest,” said Brennan.

About the report

The Investment Trends 2021 Platform Benchmarking & Competitive Analysis Report is based on detailed review and audit of the features and functionality offered to planners by 13 leading investment platforms in Australia, assessed across more than 500 different criteria.

Functional items are given weightings to reflect their relative importance to advisers, based on Investment Trends’ ongoing annual detailed quantitative surveys that track advisers’ platform and product preferences.

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Australia’s High Net Worth are increasingly confident about the direction of the share market.

Key Highlights

• Total number of millionaires in Australia rose 31% to 635,000 during the past year
• Australia’s millionaires control $2.77 trillion in investable assets (up 37%)
•  68% of High Net Worth investors expect the share market to rise (up from 40% in 2020)
• ETFs and cryptocurrencies were the asset classes that saw the largest growth in uptake among High Net Worth investors during the past year

New research shows that Australia’s High Net Worth (HNW) investors are more numerous, wealthier, have fewer significant worries, and are increasingly confident about the direction of the share market.

This research, commissioned by platform provider Praemium Limited, and carried out by research company Investment Trends, involved more than 11,000 investors, including more than 2,200 who met the HNW criteria. These criteria involved $1 million in discretionary investable assets, including their self-managed super fund, excluding their super, home and business net of debt.

There are now an estimated 635,000 millionaires in Australia, who control $2.77 trillion in investable assets. A year ago, the numbers were 488,000 and $2.02 trillion, seeing a rise of 31% and 37% respectively.

Sarah Brennan, CEO at Investment Trends commented: “The post-pandemic asset price surge has fueled historical growth in HNW investor numbers.”

The number of millionaires in Australia was fairly constant between 2017 and 2020, before this year’s dramatic rise. There were 424,000 millionaires in Australia in 2017, 434,000 in 2018, 458,000 in 2019 and 488,000 in 2020.

Anthony Wamsteker, CEO of Praemium Limited noted that: “The results of the research demonstrated not only the resilience of Australia’s wealthier investors but also the resilience of Australian capital markets, which rallied significantly following a sharp fall at the start of the COVID pandemic in early March last year.

“During the COVID-19 Pandemic, Australian investors could have been excused for retreating into their shells a little with the share market bumping along the bottom for a while,” he said. “But the research shows that Australia’s wealthiest investors are a very optimistic group. Once they got over the shock of the fall in the share market, they were happy to weigh back in. Their levels of optimism are much higher than they were a year ago.”

In September last year, 50% of Australian HNWs expected the share market to fall, 40% expected it to rise and 10% expected it to stay the same. A year later the respective numbers were 32%, 68% and 0%.

Australian HNWs are far less worried today than they were a year ago. The chief concerns among HNWs are: COVID (45%, down from 68% last year); tension between the world’s major economies (43%, down from 53% last year); and another global market crash (40%, up from 37%). The two biggest drops in concerns over the year were concerns about the Australian economy (63% to 30%) and concerns about the White House administration (47% to 19%).

The research shows that Australian HNWs are keen to continue riding the wave of a rising share market. 20% of respondents, the highest percentage in the past 10 years, said their key objective in the next year is to maximise capital growth. The percentage of those looking to protect themselves against market falls was 8%, the lowest percentage in the past ten years.

Against this backdrop, the All-Ordinaries Index rose strongly by 28% in the 12 months to September 2021 (from 6,108 to 7,826).

There was considerable growth in HNW investor numbers across all wealth bands. For instance, those with $2.5-5 million of assets rose from 170,000 to 179,000; those with $5-10 million of assets rose from 56,000 to 59,000; and those with $10-70 million of assets rose from 18,000 to 28,000. Those 28,000 people control over 40% of the assets held by HNW investors.

Some other key findings from the research included:

• ETFs and cryptocurrencies were the asset classes that saw the largest growth in uptake among HNWs during the past year
• ETFs, LICs and REITs remained the three top asset classes among HNWs
• Ultra HNW Investors (those with over $10m in investable assets) have a higher desire than other investors for consolidated reporting and administration assistance, ideally from a single digital platform

In terms of the advice requirements of Australian HNWs, 13% of respondents said they were happy to use investment advisers; 52% said they were happy to use advisers only to validate their own thoughts, to gain access to a wider range of investments or for technical skills; and 33% said they did not use advisers at all. During the past year, the percentage of HNWs using accountants for tax advice rose from 52% to 56%, while those using investment advisers fell slightly from 41% to 40%.

HNWs paid their private client advisers an average of $7,574 in 2021, up from $7,000 in 2020.

Mr Wamsteker said the research highlights a growing array of unmet advice needs for HNW Australian investors, particularly inheritance and estate planning and strategies to reduce tax obligations. Yet simultaneously there is a reluctance from many of them to use investment advisers.

“This presents an opportunity for Australian investment advisers to help meet these needs via a holistic total wealth management experience. Articulating the value their advice can bring and adapting to provide HNWs with superior and sophisticated service and technology will help to meet the needs of this growing and important investor segment,” he said.

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Meaghan Victor

State Street Global Advisors, the asset management business of State Street Corporation (NYSE: STT) together with Investment Trends have issued a new report revealing financial planners are allocating more wealth into managed accounts than ever before, freeing them up to develop better client relationships and reduce administration time.

The latest SPDR ETFs / Investment Trends Managed Accounts Report shows how financial planners were better able to react to market movements to benefit their clients with managed accounts during the volatility brought on by the global spread of COVID-19 from February 2020.

The Report found 70 per cent of Australian financial planners, or up to 12,000 planners, are now using managed accounts or intend to, up from 44 per cent in 2012.

Managed accounts are investment structures that are continually managed by professional wealth managers. The wealth manager can manage the investment structure following set investment objectives and can modify and rebalance the portfolio in line with that goal.

Often these structures follow institutional style investment methods. The Report also found new client money is increasingly being allocated into managed accounts.

Prior to COVID-19, financial planners allocated 12 per cent of new client inflows into managed accounts, on average. One year on from the global onset of COVID-19, planners allocated 17 per cent of new client inflows, a 42 per cent increase. The vast majority (88 per cent) said managed accounts helped them save time during periods of market volatility brought on by COVID-19.

In Australia, managed accounts now represent around $95 billion of funds under management.

Looking ahead, financial planners expect to allocate close to a quarter, or 23 per cent of new client inflows into managed accounts by 2024, on average. In 2013, it was just four per cent. When looking at planners already using managed accounts, the number rises significantly. Current managed account users expect to allocate nearly half (49 per cent) of their new client inflows to managed accounts by 2024, on average, up from 41 per cent in 2021 and 27 per cent in 2018.

Looking across the spectrum of investor age and wealth, financial planners most often consider managed accounts suitable for their accumulator clients between the age of 35 to 49 (37 per cent cite this) and those with $250k to $1m in investable assets (63 per cent). One quarter of managed account users prefer using these structures for lower balance clients (<$100k) while 22 per cent say they are appropriate for millennials (aged under 35) or self-managed super funds (SMSFs), respectively.

Reflective of broader investor preferences, financial planners are also using managed accounts to implement environmental, social and governance (ESG) themes across their clients’ investments.

State Street Global Advisors Head of SPDR ETF Asia Pacific Distribution Meaghan Victor said greater awareness of ESG was reflected in take-up of managed accounts.

“The volatility of the last 12 months has prompted people to think differently about their investments and better align them with their values. In particular, younger investors, are asking their planners how they can better incorporate responsible investing principles into their portfolios,” Ms Victor said.

“While the benefits of ESG investing may be clear, the best path for individual investors to take isn’t as obvious. Some may want to dip a toe into ESG investing; others may want to commit a significant part of their portfolio.

“With 72 per cent of financial planners preferring to implement responsible investing themes via a managed account, these structures will play an increasingly important role in helping investors action their responsible investing goals.”

Investment Trends Chief Executive Officer Sarah Brennan emphasised the potential for managed accounts to receive greater new inflows in the next three years, given the strong appetite shown by financial planners in this year’s Report.

“Financial planners tell us that managed accounts are not just for their wealthy clients – they are suitable for wealth accumulators, millennials, and SMSFs, alike. These solutions sit at the heart of democratising investing, and many planners find it easier to demonstrate client best interest obligations with managed accounts,” explained Brennan.

“During recent market volatility, most managed account users acknowledged that these solutions gave them more time, helped them to execute trades more quickly and helped them to reduce operational risk.”

State Street Global Advisors launched its ETF Model Portfolio offering to the Australian market in 2019. It now ranks among the top 20 most used investment managers by planners who currently use managed accounts.

The 12th edition of the Report was conducted by Investment Trends via an online quantitative survey for 905 Australian financial planners. It took place between December 2020 and February 2021.

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Sarah Brennan, CEO of Investment Trends says, “Andrew brings a wealth of experience and expertise to lift Investment Trends to the next level. As data quality, integrity and analytics grow in importance, Andrew will ensure that Investment Trends is at the leading edge of research and statistical analysis. By leveraging our world class technology platform to rapidly and efficiently deliver in-depth analysis, we will ensure our clients receive relevant insights to make informed decisions.”

Andrew Tunny has over 18 years’ experience in financial services across the wealth management and banking sectors. During this time, Andrew has held senior executive positions accountable for product distribution, customer satisfaction, risk management and people leadership. His recent studies include the Master of Business Administration at Macquarie Business School, and Strategic Management at Stanford Graduate School of Business in Silicon Valley.

As Head of Strategy, Andrew will be responsible for implementing the technology platform and business strategy for Investment Trends, delivering a unique value proposition for our clients around the world.

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Sarah Brennan, CEO of Investment Trends says, “I’m delighted to have the invaluable expertise, experience and leadership of Irene in guiding our world class team of industry experts. Investment Trends is ever focused on giving consumers a voice and improving outcomes in all markets we explore, and Irene and the team will strive to provide the highest quality research, data analytics and actionable insights to support our valued clients.”

As background, Irene Guiamatsia is an experienced researcher with two decades of experience spanning academia, market research and financial regulation. She was Investment Trends’ key industry expert for the retail online broking and leveraged trading markets prior to joining the Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC) in 2019.

Irene graduated with a Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering from École Polytechnique de Montréal in 1999, a PhD in Aerospace Engineering in 2007 and has previously held postdoctoral research fellowships at Imperial College London and the University of Sydney.

Recep Peker, former Research Director, will continue to support Investment Trends clients in an advisory capacity.

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