Speaking at a media briefing in Sydney last week, Martin Spedding, executive director of DST Bluedoor, the subsidiary of DST Systems that developed the AXA North platform, said clients in the retail and industry fund sector are seeking technology solutions to thwart the rise of SMSFs.
“SMSFs are of great interest to us and to our customers who are interested in looking at the leakage issues from their own funds to [the sector],” he said.
“The model portfolio and SMA-type capabilities that are emerging are in part addressing those leakage concerns.
“Investors are looking at [basis points], at fees and at the level of flexibility offered to them by their funds in terms of investment options and tax management.”
Mr Spedding said that previously technology providers viewed “unbundling” investment packages on managed funds to allow stock-picking and tax management control as an “administrative nightmare” but that the growth of SMSFs have made this technology a reality.
“Technology has been developed to compete with self-managed funds on the flexibility issue,” he said.
This article is the “tell” I have been looking for. !!! I detected an “astro-turf” campaign being run by the retail sector, given all the negative trash-talk about SMSF trustees as “punters”. Concern about “leakage” – yes indeed. So one strategy is to have a lot of “voices” from across the retail fund sector bag-out the SMSFs. The steady stream of articles carried on this site attaching the capacity of trustees all now make perfect sense. Not familiar with this sort of fake “grass-roots” campaign? Ask your favourite PR/spin doctor (there’s probably one in your family/network) who will confirm this as a strategy.