The bank yesterday announced it was establishing a new wealth management business, ANZ Wealth, by bringing together OnePath, Wealth Direct and the investment and insurance specialists in the ANZ and National Bank brands.
ANZ Wealth is being headed up by John Body, from the institutional side of the bank.
He says there is a trend worldwide for banks to increase their operations in the wealth management space and this move is another example of that happening.
He says ANZ has been offering wealth management services. Its private bank deals with clients with more than $1 million; its investment specialists look after people with between $250,000 and $1 milliion while Wealth Direct is for people with less than quarter of a million dollars. The fourth part of the business, for lower value clients, is KiwiSaver.
Body says while the bank is bringing parts of its business together it is not competing with IFAs.
"We are not building a wealth division to compete with IFAs," he says.
For him it is business as usual for Onepath and its relationship with IFAs. It will continue to remunerate IFAs on a commission basis.
Body says that although he comes from the institutional side of the bank and is biased to a fee-for-service model, that won't necessarily be forced onto IFAs, although it is how ANZ's advisers operate.
"I don't intend to be prescriptive to the industry," he says. However he plans to be involved in the debate over how the advisory world develops and evolves.
His view is some sort of hybrid charging model will emerge in the investment space involving fees and commissions. The key for Body is that there is transparency so "people can see how much they are paying for advice."
While the remuneration model for investment advice is changing, life insurance is likely to remain commission-based.
"It's unlikely insurance will change as rapidly as the investment market."
You can read advisers' views on the new business here
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