Axa has enhanced its North platform to give it the capability of servicing the investment needs of all individuals regardless of what stage of the financial life cycle they might be experiencing.
The improvement to North has come in the way of a range of improved functions for users of the offering.
"We added direct online share trading and exchange-traded funds. Using our partner Core Securities ... there will be real-time online share trading," Axa marketing and strategy general manager Barry Wyatt said.
"The next thing we've added is model portfolios, which enable advisers to implement their advice strategy with great efficiency in their office. So if somebody is building a portfolio maybe of 15 unit trusts and they wish to make a change to one of those unit trusts . this can be done at the push of a button and all clients can immediately be rebalanced to that new portfolio without the need of paperwork.
"We've added term deposits, which are obviously important when it comes to retirement planning and we need short-term security over cash, and finally we've added flexible pricing. This comes back to our young accumulators who perhaps want more of a simple, cost-effective option during the early stages of their accumulation build-up."
An example of the pricing changes can be seen in the administration fee charged for clients with a balance of up to $150,000, which is now 0.4 per cent, down from a previous level of 0.95 per cent.
In making the amendments, Axa identified four life stages it needed to satisfy: early accumulation (people between 20 and 40 years of age), setting the sights (people between 35 and 55 years of age), home stretch (people between 50 and 65 years of age), and retirement income (people between 60 and 80 years of age and beyond).
"Previously an adviser may have had to switch platforms for clients moving from setting the sights to the home stretch because a guarantee may not have been available on the existing platform," Wyatt said.
