Macquarie trumps Praemium

Launches own portfolio service

By Stephen Blaxhall
Mon 23 Jul 2007

Praemium shunted aside as the Macquarie juggernaut launches own equities portfolio service.

Macquarie has launched its own non-custody wrap, Macquarie Equities Portfolio Service, less than a week after announcing a deal with online portfolio administrator provider Praemium.

According to Macquarie Private Wealth head Peter Coleman, other non-custodial software provided for Macquarie advisers was merely an interim measure.

"We expect the majority of our non-custodial broking clients to be using this new platform by the end of the year," Coleman said.

"A number of advisers were already using non-custodial services when they joined Macquarie and they brought their clients over on those platforms and we are happy for them to continue to use those services," Macquarie Private Wealth head of business services Carolyn Tregarthen said.

"During the development and testing of the Macquarie Equities Portfolio Service, a small number of other advisers and their clients had an urgent need for basic non-custodial administrative services so we extended the availability of the imported service to them.

"For the majority of our advisers and their equities clients we needed a more comprehensive system that would provide greater administrative support and meet their more demanding reporting needs which is what has been built for us by Macquarie Adviser Services."

According to Tregarthen, the interim solutions will continue to remain available as some advisers only need very basic non-custody services and there is no need for them to transfer their clients.

Praemium announced the deal through the ASX on July 17 and outlined growth plans for the group.

"We believe that the implementation of V-Wrap has support amongst the adviser community within Macquarie," Praemium national sales and marketing manager Warren Gibson said at the time.

Go to today's InvestorDaily news

More stories by this author