Financial services firm Snowball will look to build its in-house investment and administration capabilities in a bid to take control over such services offered to its advisers, Snowball chief executive Tony McDonald has said.

McDonald said the move was similar to the way industry superannuation funds operated.

"Advisers and dealer groups need to take greater control of their business inputs as consumers and the government demand greater transparency and lower fees from the adviser market," he said.

"We are now looking to run investment portfolios on behalf of clients and own our administration business. The model is very similar to the way industry super funds operate."

In December last year, Snowball bought portfolio management business Officium Capital for $6.5 million.

Under the deal, the business also bought the firm's responsible entity (RE) capability.

"By getting an RE we can hire or fire investment managers. We can take more control over our investment portfolio and fees," McDonald said.

It was similar to the way industry funds managed their investment capability, he said.

The firm is currently looking to add an administration business.

"Taking control of administration is the last step toward fully controlling our business," McDonald said.

He said dealer groups would increasingly merge with each other in order to achieve economies of scale.

The merged groups would then have the scale to adopt a similar model to the one Snowball was implementing, he said.