The interest in taking up new products that allow self-managed superannuation funds (SMSFs) to use gearing to acquire assets is being driven by the fund members themselves and not by advisers, according to the head of a financial services firm.
"Ordinary investors are getting the concept and they're badgering their advisers and that's a great sign compared to being a solution sold by advisers," Calliva Group chief executive Vince Scully said.
Calliva launched its SuperAccess product in February this year allowing SMSFs to borrow to funds to invest in commercial property. Since that time the organisation has issued six contracts to clients, representing a better than expected take up of the offering.
"Six transactions is a small number to start with, but it's not like home loans where you are going to do tens of thousands in a month. But six in that period is ahead of where we expected to be," Scully said.
The average amount an SMSF has borrowed when accessing the product has been around $500,000 according to Scully.
While Calliva feels the take up of SuperAccess has been impressive in the initial month, none of the contracts to date have been sourced from the partnership with Firstfolio.
"The Firstfolio relationship is only about six weeks old and that's not long enough [to generate business]. These are all opportunities that have come out of the years of awareness building that we've been doing," Scully said.
"We expect the Firstfolio relationship to start generating applications in April," he added.
