Smaller platforms leading annual FUM growth

According to Plan For Life, overall retail managed funds at the end of September totalled $976.1 billion, up 3.1 per cent over the past year while for the latest quarter they were more or less flat, down by a marginal 0.3 per cent.

Most of the participants in the retail market posted increases in funds, led by smaller to mid-sized players HUB24 (57.5 per cent), Netwealth (30.8 per cent), OneVue (28.2 per cent) and Praemium (28.1 per cent).

Among the majors, IOOF (6.2 per cent), Commonwealth/Colonial First State (5.1 per cent), Macquarie (4.0 per cent) and BT (3.4 per cent) fared best, but ANZ (-5.0 per cent) and AMP (-1.9 per cent) were both lower.

Meanwhile, year-on-year inflows were little changed increasing only slightly by 1.6 per cent to $183.3 billion, during the September quarter they rose 2.6 per cent.

“That said, both headline growth rates were negatively affected by the once-off transfer of StatePlus master fund business worth $18.6 billion (super $5.7 billion, pension $12.9 billion) out of retail funds to First State Super, a public sector super fund, excluding that the underlying overall annual and quarterly growth rates were 5.0 per cent and 1.6 per cent, respectively, with all growth due to positive performances on underlying investment markets as overall annual reported net flows were negative $5.8 billion,” Plan For Life said.

The Plan For Life research noted that superannuation and unit trusts, as well as the investment funds markets, saw only very modest increases in their respective inflows of 2.3 per cent and 1.9 per cent, respectively.

However, inflows in retirement income was up by 9.1 per cent.

By contrast, year-on-year reported inflows into both the cash trusts and investment bonds sub-markets dropped by 21.0 per cent and 20.3 per cent, respectively.

Adrian Flores

Adrian Flores is a deputy editor at Momentum Media, focusing mainly on banking, wealth management and financial services. He has also written for Public Accountant, Accountants Daily and The CEO Magazine.

You can contact him on [email protected].