IP had an application for a licence approved by the regulator after the company’s board moved to provide solutions for clients unable to use the company’s individually-managed account investment service due to restrictive approved product lists.
Speaking exclusively to ifa, IP managing director and co-founder Santi Burridge said Implemented Advice (IA) – as the new entity will be known – will not seek to become a “dealer group for hire” but rather a solution for select partners that are frustrated with their current licensing arrangements and do not want to get their own AFSL.
“We consistently have come against the institutional conflicted platform model where institutional licensees have tried to limit or in some case not allow IPs use for the only reason that it is not on their platform,” Mr Burridge said.
“We have had private discussions where licensees have outright stated that because it is not on our platform we cannot allow it.
“Given the board’s background is in advice, we wanted to create a licensee service that was focused on the things advisers struggle to do well in institutions and on a small scale.”
Mr Burridge said he is encountering a growing number of clients frustrated with the “stranglehold institutional licensees have on what [they can] and can’t recommend”.
Brisbane-based practice AIP Wealth Management is the first to join the IA licence, with principal Anthony Isaac telling ifa he is now able to deliver a more “consistent investment experience” since the move.
“I was looking for a licensee that would offer services that leveraged leading technology, such as the Salesforce CRM,” Mr Isaac said.
“I was also looking for a client investment solution most closely aligned with my core beliefs and [that] would allow me to focus on client strategy.
“I particularly did not want to be under an institutional licensee with distribution conflicts.”
Correction
This article originally referred to Donegal Wealth as joining the Implemented Advice (IA) licence. It has since come to our attention that it is AIP Wealth Management which has joined IA.
Donegal Wealth, a completely separate independently-owned financial planning organisation, has no relationship with either Implemented Portfolios or IA and operates under its own licence which it has held since 1999. ifa apologises for the mistake.
Hasbeen is right on the money! An adviser within the Implemented Advice Group advising clients to use the Implemented Portfolios system is fundamentally no different to a Bank adviser using a Bank owned Wrap account or Bank managed fund. I personally have no issue with conflicted advice (assuming disclosure is clear), and their model may be fine, however if these guys believe their advice is not conflicted they are quite naive.
Call me old fashioned but isn’t this exactly what they are arguing against? How many other ‘platforms’ will be on their APL? Vertical integration just doesn’t occur because your owned by a bank! C’mon we are all onto the so called ‘independents ‘with no distribution conflicts !!!