The Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) is in talks with close to 10 dealer groups to take advantage of the demand from retail investors interested in ASX-listed investment products.
Since the beginning of this financial year, investors using the ASX Find a Planner portal could link to two dealer groups profiled on the site, ASX head of customer and business development Ian Irvine said.
“At this stage the site has been up and running for about two months and has had close to 1200 click throughs from our page to the two dealer groups we currently have on there: Magnitude and AIOFP (Association of Independently Owned Financial Planners),” Irvine said.
“We have eight dealer groups that we’re currently talking with who are interested in participating – they’ve got the planners, they’ve met the training requirements and everything is lined up.
“They are just trying to get their fundamentals in place before they actually go live.”
While Irvine would not name the eight dealer groups, he said they typically tended to be medium to smaller financial planning firms that belonged to independent networks.
The launch of the planner referral portal, which is a spin-off of the ASX’s Find a Broker resource, was driven by retail investors’ interest in ASX-listed investment products.
“Particularly, in the current circumstances, but also over the last few years as well, the role of financial planners in providing advice to their investor clients for the use of ASX-listed products is growing,” Irvine said.
For a planner to become eligible to participate they must meet various educational criteria, accreditation in ASX-listed products and cornerstone training, he said.
“They also must have some geographic spread and they need to have more than eight planners in their business,” he said.
“Then it’s the dealer group’s responsibility to manage those planners and make sure they continue to meet the criteria.”
