NZX says platform nearly live

NZX says it expects to have a large customer go online with its Wealth Technologies investment platform, (formerly Apteryx) in October.

Tuesday, August 21st 2018, 6:29AM

The NZX hasn't named the customer in its recent results announcement, but it is Craigs Investment Partners. Its second customer for the platform, Hobson Wealth, has postponed its plans to join up.

NZX says core platform development was completed in the second quarter this year and that includes trading, valuation, cash and asset reconsiliation, corporate actions and investor and management reporting.

Currently it is carrying out data migration and doing "dry runs."

NZX says after Craigs is on board the "business then moves into growth phase." Focus will shift to sales and product refinement.

It says the pipleline of new business "remains strong."

NZX bought the platform, then called Apteryx in 2015 for $1.5 million and has been pouring money into it since then.

The latest results show Wealth Technologies is its biggest capital expenditure item in 2017 and the first half of 2018. (See graph below).

The platform continues to make a loss. In the six months to June the loss was $608,000 compared to a loss of $801,000 in the corresponding period last year. Total revenue this year was down 33% to $483,000 compared to $721,000 last year.

Expenses in the current period sat at $1.09 million compared to $1.52 million last year.

External funds under administration have fallen 7.9% to $1.1 billion.

NZX says that Wealth Technologies remains a core part of its business strategy.

Currently the exchange is selling non-core assets and this is understood to include the research business FundSource.

NZX continues to grow its funds management business and says the increase in funds under management reflects increased retail and adviser utilisation.

Total external funds under management has grown from $2.7 billion to $2.9 billion. SuperLife membership is up 6.3% compared to the corresponding period last year and now sits at 51,963.