“The Guaranteed Income Fund (GIF) gives Challenger the ability to dramatically improve its coverage of the Australian superannuation market,” Challenger chief executive Dominic Stevens said.
Challenger has traditionally sold its Guaranteed Income Plan (GIP) via independent financial planners without using platforms.
“This allowed us to target self-managed super funds or the advice person retail market, however, not using platforms has put us at a historical disadvantage,” Stevens said.
“What we know is that of the estimated 10,000-plus planners out there only about 10-20 per cent of them would sell an annuity product without using a platform. As such, no matter how good our products are we could only engage with a very small part of an enormous saving pool.”
The GIF differs from the GIP product in that it is unitised and, therefore, easy to list on platforms.
The product was launched in mid-2009, and has recently been added to a range of platforms, including Asgard, BT Wrap, Macquarie Wrap, CFS wrap, and a number of IOOF platforms.
Challenger is now directing its energy towards having the product listed on approved products lists.
“This has gone significantly faster than we expected,” Stevens said.
“We are now covering the majority of the spectrum and we are now progressing to the third phase and that is rolling out our specialised distribution and engaging with financial planners.
