The weight of money flowing into the Commonwealth Bank of Australia’s main retail platform has more than halved since June’s record superannuation rush.
The bumper June quarter was a “once in a lifetime” opportunity for the bank, CBA’s wealth management group executive Grahame Petersen said.
CBA’s FirstChoice platform saw a 7.1 per cent uplift in net flows in the three months to September, the bank said yesterday.
FirstChoice won $1.8 billion in net flows this quarter, bringing the platform’s total funds under administration to $42.3 billion.
This compared to a 15.8 per cent spike in the June quarter, which is usually the strongest period of the year.
Net flows were also down on an 8.8 per cent increase in net flows of $2.25 billion into FirstChoice during the September quarter last year.
Total funds under management (FUM) at September 30, 2007 for the bank’s wealth management division Colonial First State stood at $145 billion, up 3.8 per cent for the quarter.
This compared to a 6.8 per cent rise in FUM in the June quarter.
“Our funds under management business continued to attract strong net fund flows to September,” Petersen said.
“We were expecting a strong quarter and I’m pleased we did well,” he said.
Total funds under administration stood at $186.7 billion for the first quarter of the financial year, up 5.4 per cent on June.
This compared to a modest 7.1 per cent increase in the June quarter, which was affected by the run-off of legacy products and the Avanteos platform’s loss of a $7.1 billion account with Goldman Sachs JBWere.
Avanteos received $248 million in net flows in the three months to September, compared to $544 million in the three months to June.
Net flows into FirstChoice grew by 51 per cent over the last financial year.
Petersen said the bank would not give forward projections but noted FirstChoice continued to benefit from growth in pension products and backing from more than half of the country’s financial advisers.
“We’ll always get strong flows,” he said. “Australians are still investing.”
