Managed funds drive growth in financial product registrations

Data released by APIR Systems has revealed that new financial product registrations increased significantly during the 2021-22 financial year.

The firm, which identifies, codes and manages reference data for unlisted financial products, reported that registrations increased by 30.1 per cent with a total of 964 product registrations.

This followed on from a 25.8 per cent increase in registrations during the 2020-21 financial year.

“Registrations of traditional managed investment products continue to thrive indicating a healthy level of product development within the industry,” said APIR chief executive Chris Donohoe.

“Managed fund products continued to be the key registration growth driver, having increased approximately 14.0 per cent on the prior year. Closed-end products such as mortgage trusts continue to increase their contribution to overall registration growth numbers.”

Total product terminations were down by 4.5 per cent on the previous financial year and remained primarily focused on superannuation investment options. Mr Donohoe noted that 78.8 per cent of the terminations seen during 2021-22 were for super options.

Meanwhile, archiving of managed fund products was down by over 50 per cent, falling back in line with the five-year rolling average after a significant spike was recorded in 2020-21.

On the outlook for the current financial year, Mr Donohoe stated that it would be interesting to see how product manufacturers respond to recent changes in the economic climate such as higher interest rates and inflation.

APIR previously reported a spike in year-to-date product registrations of almost 50 per cent in April. At the time, Mr Donohoe had identified the implementation of the corporate collective investment vehicles (CCIVs) as a key development to watch.

“The CCIV structure offers a great opportunity for Australian financial product manufacturers, providing them with an investment vehicle that offshore investors are comfortable with, and resulting in improved harmonisation with offshore jurisdictions,” he said.

During its 27-year history, APIR said that it had identified a total of more than 30,000 individual financial products.

Jon Bragg

Jon Bragg is a journalist for Momentum Media's Investor Daily, nestegg and ifa. He enjoys writing about a wide variety of financial topics and issues and exploring the many implications they have on all aspects of life.