“The launch of the ASX Managed Funds Service (AMFS) – informally known as AQUA II – may be one step closer to realisation following the release of a consultation paper by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC).
The regulator will reach a decision in November, and the ASX has put a provisional launch date in early 2014.
Fund managers will welcome this news, as it potentially opens them up to the self-managed superannuation fund (SMSF) sector.
The ASX also downplayed the threat the AMFS may pose to big wraps. “We’re agnostic about what kind of customers use the product,”an ASX spokesperson told the Financial Standard.
AMFS will target three sets of customers:
- SMSFs,
- fully-advised clients (i.e. those not using online brokers), and
- the wrap platforms themselves.
AMFS represents a move towards a smaller scale, more pluralistic market – a move largely being driven by the rapid expansion of the SMSF sector. This is bound to disrupt current systems. The positions of the big plaforms will become clearer as submissions to ASIC’s consultation paper come in.”
Source: Financial Standard. Read full article here.
