The new platform, called Direct Equity Managed Account Service, provides investment management and administration under a single custody arrangement, while investors retain beneficial ownership of the underlying assets.
Since the onset of the financial crisis, there had been an increase in the number of clients switching from managed funds to direct equities, which meant there was going to be greater demand for financial planners to provide a sophisticated service that offered direct equities, Wealth Within said.
But so far, smaller businesses have only been able to provide individually-managed accounts to a limited number of wealthy people.
The new product enables financial planners and brokers to administer an unlimited number of client investment portfolios, and the system also integrates with Iress’s VisiPlan and Xplan systems.
Wealth Within is working with a major Australian institution to bring this service to market by July 2009.
The system’s main point of difference with existing platforms was that each portfolio was customised to identify the best-performing opportunities at the time they invested, Wealth Within chief analyst Dale Gillham said.
“This is based on our company’s philosophy, which combines timing the market with time in the market, that seeks to maximise the return on the client’s investments,” Gillham said.
“The benefit to the investor is that they will not be buying into an existing and what may be a less relevant and less timely modelled portfolio.”
