AMP Capital head of SMSF Tim Keegan told SMSF Adviser one of the factors driving AMP Capital’s decision to make the funds available via the mFund service was that SMSF trustees are dominant users of the stock exchange and also looking for easier access to AMP Capital’s funds.
“SMSF trustees typically have a skew towards Australian equities so they’re very familiar with trading on the stock exchange – what mFund allows them to do is buy funds in a similar way,” said Mr Keegan.
“It makes it a lot easier because they don’t have to fill out any paperwork and essentially their on-boarding process is done by virtue of their account with their broker.”
Mr Keegan said since AMP Capital launched its SMSF business roughly a year ago, there has been a 70 per cent increase in flows into its funds.
He said the funds AMP Capital chose to list on the mFund service were selected as they provide exposure to asset classes that SMSF trustees are looking to diversify into.
AMP Capital, he said, continues to stay in contact with its clients to “understand what other kinds of funds they might be interested in, or indeed new investment opportunities”.
“This year we’ve launched our SMSF suite which provides a whole range of tools and insights for SMSF trustees and a weekly newsletter, which now has several thousand subscribers.
“We are looking at a range of different investment opportunities that we can bring to SMSF trustees as well as other tools and services that make their investing life easier – they’ll be progressively rolled out through 2015,” said Mr Keegan.
Mr Keegan said the mFund service was a good thing from an investor point of view and hopes more brokers take up the service over time.
