BT Panorama boosts functionality as rapid growth continues

BT Panorama highlights

  • BT Panorama has exceeded $20 billion in funds under administration (FUA)
  • 78.68 per cent growth since the introduction of simple open platform pricing in July 20181
  • Almost 70 per cent of transfers to and from BT Panorama are from customers new to BT2
  • BT Panorama’s active advisers increased by 48 per cent and customer accounts are up 78 per cent3
  • Record of advice (ROA) integration with Xplan
  • New adviser portfolio functionality and additional managed portfolios added to the menu
  • BT Panorama was the fastest growing retail platform in the 12 months to March, with BT overall remaining the number one retail platform provider in terms of market share4

BT has announced a raft of enhancements to its flagship investment platform BT Panorama as it exceeds $20b FUA with almost 70 per cent of transfers from customers new to BT.

BT’s General Manager, Platforms, Investments and Operations, Kathy Vincent said the growth has been driven by strong adviser demand and the rise of managed accounts5.

Data released on 28 June by Strategic Insight shows BT Panorama had FUA growth of 82% in the 12 months to March 2019, the fastest of all retail platforms. Overall, BT remains the number one retail platform provider in Australia in terms of market share with $135 billion in FUA, representing 19.5 per cent of the market.

“The latest enhancements are a combination of boosting stability across the platform to improve overall performance and adding new features to help advisers deliver advice to their clients efficiently,” said Ms Vincent.

The enhancements include: ROA integration with Xplan; new Adviser Portfolio tools enabling account level model construction and rebalancing; improvements to household reporting through the related groups capability; corporate action participation via the digital consent functionality and; a new SMSF dashboard integrated to accounting software through APIs.

Key enhancements

ROA integration to Xplan

Advisers can now generate an ROA through Panorama, seek and receive client consent digitally, with record of the consent and the ROA document being sent via a data feed directly to Xplan and automatically uploaded to a client file. This integration assists in keeping compliant records and also saves time for advisers and their practice. The end to end process of generating an ROA, receiving client consent and storing these records in Xplan for compliance, could take a few weeks previously, but can now take as little as one or two days.

Adviser Portfolios

To further assist advisers in tailoring their investment service to client needs, BT has introduced account level portfolio construction and rebalancing tools for Advisers on BT Panorama. Adviser Portfolios can hold a combination of listed securities and managed funds, and advisers can rebalance back to target allocations (periodically or ad-hoc) based on client instructions. Additionally, the ability to generate an ROA and seek digital client consent for rebalances is also included, coupled with these consent records passing through to Xplan.

SMSF member dashboard

The new SMSF member dashboard includes externally held assets, member level balances, a sliding scale for contribution caps, new contribution and pension reports, and provides access to real time data for members’ accountants using supported software. This is all visible alongside the BT Panorama account.

According to the Investment Trends 2019 Planner Technology Report released on 21 June, BT Panorama is the highest rated platform for mobile access and level of fees. Additionally, ratings from primary users put it ahead of the industry on eight out of ten categories relating to platform tools and value.

“Change in the industry is unprecedented and now more than ever advisers need intuitive technology that helps them support client engagement through detailed reporting, quality data feeds, online functionality and processes that limit room for compliance errors through re-keying. These things are a necessity, not just nice to have,” said Ms Vincent.

“Adviser feedback is key to the improvements and additions we make to BT Panorama and we will continue listening and harnessing our customer-centred design process to build new features that help advisers run their business and provide advice to their clients their way,” said Ms Vincent.

Further enhancements are scheduled over the coming quarter with a focus on BT Panorama’s managed accounts customer experience, including the ability to construct nested investment options by enabling the use of Separately Managed Accounts (SMAs) within other SMA models, and broadening the managed fund fee rebate capability across all managed account offers.

 

1 BT Panorama had a 78.68 per cent increase in FUA, up from $11.2b at the launch of BT Open pricing on 21 July 2018 to $20b 23 June 2019

2 Increase from launch of BT Open pricing 21 July 2018 to 23 June 2019

3 Increase from launch of BT Open pricing 21 July 2018 to 23 June 2019. An ‘active adviser’ is an adviser who is onboarded and registered to Panorama with an open adviser position (under which they can manage accounts) and have FUM of greater than $1.00

4 Strategic Insight data for March quarter 2019. Figures quoted are on a retail platforms (excluding corporate super) basis including BT Panorama, BT Wrap and Asgard eWrap.

5 Managed accounts FUA is 15 per cent of BT Panorama FUA

 

For more information please contact:

Mike Willesee 0466 379 081

Mike.Willesee@Westpac.com.au