According to the researcher’s review, overall masterfund business grew $51.4 billion from $620.7 billion in to $672.2 billion.
Plan For Life said that during the December quarter alone, masterfund business climbed $31.2 billion on the back of positive, “if at times wobbly” investment markets supported by “unprecedented stimulatory low interest rates”.
Major financial institutions, Plan For Life found, have all reported growth in funds under management (FUM), with BT Financial Group growing 19.6 per cent, AMP Group 18.8 per cent and NAB/MLC 15.7 per cent.
Plan For Life also found that wraps experienced a growth of 15.2 per cent over the past year.
“Macquarie [$57.8 billion], AMP [$51.6 billion], BT [$43.7 billion] and NAB/MLC [$28.9 billion] dominate the wrap market, accounting for almost two thirds of the overall total,” a statement from Plan For Life said.
“From an administrator point of view, wraps are even more concentrated with BT [$102.7 billion] alone being responsible for close to 37 per cent of the wrap total.”
Platform funds also increased throughout 2015 although at a “much more modest rate” of 2.9 per cent with all of the increase due to investment earnings.
“Annual inflows were $49.9 billion [37.4 per cent] but these were all offset by outflows of $50.3 billion [45.6 per cent], resulting in only a relatively marginal negative overall net fund flow of just -$0.3 billion.
“Commonwealth/Colonial [$74.9 billion], NAB/MLC [$73.5 billion], AMP [$55.2 billion], IOOF [$29.8 billion], ANZ [$22.1 billion] and Mercer [$19.7 billion] all lead the platform market,” the statement said.
