Term deposits offered via Consilium platform

A new term deposit offer on the Consilium platform is another way for advisers to ring-fence their clients’ financial needs and boost their value proposition, the firm says.

Thursday, 18 August 2016

by Susan Edmunds

Consilium’s growth partner Ben Brinkerhoff said it could offer term deposit rates that were better than retail, from five providers.

He said the cost of custody for holding the term deposits was significantly discounted by the underlying platform.

Advisers could look at what was available from all the providers, select the term they wanted to hold, and find the most competitive offer.

Providers available are ANZ, Heartland, UDC and Rabobank.

“When the term deposit matures, the client doesn’t have to go back and haggle for a better rate or go through the rigmarole of moving to another bank. All that drama is taken away.”

Advisers could use the platform to develop a ladder of term deposits across a range of providers. Some rates were 50 basis points above those offered to retail customers, he said. “If you take away all the costs, the client is still in a better-off position.”

If they decided they wanted to then move to a managed fund investment, the adviser could do it within the platform, he said.

“It’s a way for advisers to gatekeep for their clients’ financial lives,” Brinkerhoff said. “There could be reasons that people want to hold term deposits and if that’s the case you want advisers to think strategically and we can offer this facility to help manage clients’ term deposits.”

Consilium chief investment officer Damon O’Brien said it was a way that advisers could seek to add value.

He said retail customers who managed their term deposits on their own tended to default to the best rate on offer from the banks they were already with.

Operating through the platform would ensure they were getting the most competitive rate they could. “They don’t engage effectively, they get automatic rollover and get lazy and that bleeds out in terms of lower rates.”

Brinkerhoff said he did not expect advisers to advise clients into term deposits instead of investment portfolios but it was a reality that some customers wanted them in the current environment.

“This is a way for the adviser to be a gatekeeper across the client’s entire financial life.”

O’Brien said: “They are all looking over their shoulders about roboadvice and the way to combat that is to have a stronger value proposition and be more irreplaceable.”

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