Colonial First State eyes growth in adviser business with new wealth platform

Colonial First State plans to grow its business with financial advisers while shaking up the market through its new wealth management platform.

Colonial First State plans to grow its business with financial advisers while shaking up the market through its new wealth management platform.

CFS super CEO Kelly Power said CFS Edge is the first major new platform in the Australian wealth management sector in almost a decade.

“We think that this is the first step of CFS really coming out as the leader in this market,” Ms Power said. “We want to create more competition.”

CFS developed CFS Edge with FNZ, a global wealth technology and services player backed by former US vice-president Al Gore’s investment group.

“It uses the best global wealth management technology and has been uniquely co-developed with financial advisers from the very start,” Ms Power said.

The move is part of a $430m investment in technology by CFS over four years, which included major upgrades for its First Choice platform last year.

Through CFS Edge, CFS aims to take on big players in the platforms market such as Westpac’s BT Platforms, one of Australia’s largest wealth management platforms. Westpac in June abandoned the sale of BT, opting to continue to invest in the business “to aggressively compete in the platforms market”.

Asked about competing with the likes of BT, Ms Power said the development of CFS Edge was about looking at all the services provided to advisers across the market.

“For us it’s about ensuring there is a very competitive market right across all of the Australian platforms,” she said.

The launch represents the biggest step by CFS since it became a stand-alone business when Commonwealth Bank sold a 55 per cent interest in the wealth manager to KKR in December 2021.

“This is the most significant initiative that we’ve brought to market since we separated from CBA,” Ms Power said.

CFS, which has $147bn in total funds under management, works with about 1600 advisers, but hopes to boost that number through the new platform.

“We have a significant number of relationships with advisers right across all of CFS’s platforms and our intention is to ensure that we’re supporting those advisers, but also to grow the number of advisers we work with,” Ms Power said.

FNZ, which administers more than $2.2 trillion in client assets, recently highlighted Australia as a top-three growth area, identifying the market as ripe for disruption.

“Together, we aim to revolutionise the industry and deliver unparalleled value and capability to the Australian market,” FNZ Asia Pacific CEO Tim Neville said of the CFS partnership.

CFS said the platform uses market-leading FNZ technology with new features and capability not previously available in the Australian market, and is the first major wealth management platform with managed accounts at its core.

“CFS Edge is a full-service wrap platform from day one, offering market-leading super, pension and investments capability with advanced managed accounts at the core,” Ms Power said.