An increase in buy/sell activity among financial planning firms has prompted the Commonwealth Bank of Australia's (CBA) financial planning division to expand its industry reach.
"Essentially we are expanding to cater to the needs of the market. We are seeing more demand than we first anticipated," Commonwealth Bank general manager market specialists, corporate financial services Stewart Creighton said.
"The demand is essentially around consolidation in the industry, so there is a lot of buy/sell activity happening. We are seeing a lot of financial planners selling their book of clients to other financial planners."
Initial expansion plans have led to the formation of a Melbourne-based team, to be spearheaded by former UBS Switzerland staffer Christian Strahlhofer and former Royal Bank of Scotland staffer Komal Soni.
Strahlhofer joins the division as its relationship manager while Soni will join as account manager.
Creighton has not ruled out further expansion for the CBA planning division in the near future.
"Expansion could be in a number of different forms, it could be geographical expansion, it could be the expansion of the team within the existing areas," he said.
"But it will also be a niche team in that our focus... will always be on financial planners themselves and the financial planning industry including dealer groups, potentially IFAs [independent financial advisers] as well."
The division was launched in October 2007. It was developed after the banking group recognised greater opportunities in the industry outside of its own dealer group, Financial Wisdom.
