Platforms are not solution providers: AZ NGA

AZ NGA group chief executive Paul Barrett warned platforms should stay in their lane rather than overstep to improve financial adviser productivity, reiterating that it is the advice business' responsibility to do so.

Speaking at the Financial Services Council (FSC) Shaping Advice Summit, Barrett took aim at platforms for how they portray themselves as the leaders in solving adviser productivity issues.

"I just disagree with [the idea that platforms are best placed to solve adviser productivity]. I think advice businesses are best placed to solve productivity challenges because we own the advice process," Barrett asserted.

"We're the ones dispensing services to the clients; it's our process. It's not the platform's process... We are where we are because the advice industry has been so fragmented.

"There have never been financially strong, large-scale advice platforms that have the capital to [improve adviser productivity]."

Barrett also lamented that the ownership of their clients' data is so "dispersed" due to the "open architecture" structure of platforms, creating a barrier for advisers who are simply looking for better access.

He pointed to the "elephant in the room" being centred on data - which is very difficult to obtain and therefore analyse.

"In our industry, the data issues are so complicated, the data quality is so poor, and the ownership of that data is so dispersed," he said.

"That's our data; they're our clients. They're not [the platforms'] clients."

At a separate panel, responding to Barrett's stern claims, Netwealth chief executive Matt Heine and Dash executive director of strategy Darren Pettiona rebuked Barrett's idea, calling it a widely spread "misconception" among advisers.

Heine argued that many may think platforms are using their clients' data in "nefarious" ways, which is false.

"It's not about client ownership; it's about the repositioning where platforms have come from a product perspective," Heine said.

"The reality is that, as we've evolved as a business, we think of ourselves far more as a tech business than a wealth business... We have a platform but we also have a fantastic data aggregation solution that would solve 99% of the problems that we hear in every practice.

"And yet there's this misconception of, 'if I didn't use that data solution over here, which is completely independent of the platform, you're going to use my data in nefarious ways to do things that I want you to'. It's fundamentally not right."

Pettiona agreed, stating that the sentiment is discrediting platforms.

He understood that the platforms are ultimately a service utility, but it doesn't hinder the fostering of "real" relationships between the two parties.

"But if [an adviser] tries to become the gatekeeper and the dictator, I think that's a slippery slide," Pettiona said.