North, one of Australia’s leading wrap investment platforms, is pleased to announce it has expanded its range of customisation options for managed portfolios, giving advisers more flexibility over the assets their clients hold.

This new functionality means advisers can create more bespoke solutions by tailoring their client's managed portfolio to individual preferences and goals, customising the underlying holdings to account for any specific client objectives or needs. It also allows North to provide tailored solutions to advice practices with smaller balances. 

With this new feature, North’s investment menu can now serve a larger number of clients who want to benefit from managed portfolios but were previously limited by their individual circumstances.

North’s professionally managed portfolio range has seen exceptional growth in the last 12 months – with a 50% increase in advisers using MyNorth Managed Portfolios over the last two years¹ – and offers choice and flexibility to meet a diverse range of client goals. 

These tailored managed portfolio solutions can also deliver considerable efficiencies and free an adviser up to focus on their clients’ overall investment strategies.

Bridging the gap between off-the-shelf and fully tailored solutions

According to SuitabilityHub’s 2024 Platform Market Wrap, North offers a “high level of flexibility” with three managed account solutions catering to the level of involvement practices seek. 

With its fractional share capability, advice practices with clients of all balances can better track the target model for managed accounts on North, helping deliver better outcomes.  

This is particularly valuable to lower-balance clients, the report said, who often face high minimum investment requirements when using SMAs and hold excessive cash where individual stocks have a high dollar price².

In April, AMP partnered with BlackRock and Lonsec to launch a new category of tailored managed portfolio solutions, available to advice practices exclusively through AMP’s North platform. 

This innovation has enabled AMP to support both the practices within its network and the growing number of advisers operating under their own AFSL. 

They can now benefit from a cutting-edge managed portfolio solution, offering customisation to meet each practice’s unique needs and investment approach.

Supporting advisers with new additions to North Online

Several new enhancements have also been introduced to North Online to support the introduction of investment preferences and portfolio exclusions. 

Advisers can now nominate one or more assets to not be held within a client's managed portfolio, with options to nominate a substitute asset, hold the allocation in managed portfolio cash, or spread the allocation proportionally across other assets in the client's managed portfolio. 

These investment preference instructions will apply to all managed portfolios that the account may invest in until the instruction is deleted or the account is closed. 

To support these enhancements, North Online has added a Managed Portfolio investment preferences section to its Investment Instruction screen and introduced an Adviser Report feature that outlines investment preferences for advisers with managed portfolio clients.

Mercer appointed as Investment Manager for the APS CoreSeries Portfolios

Following a comprehensive tender process, North is pleased to announce that Mercer has been appointed as the Investment Manager for the APS CoreSeries Managed Portfolio range, replacing Morgan Stanley Wealth Management. 

The three portfolios, which comprise Conservative, Balanced and Growth investment options, are currently open for investment to both new and existing investors.

The appointment of Mercer as the new manager means lower investment manager fees, translating into direct cost savings for clients with an estimated decrease of at least 0.08% per annum³. 

It also minimises disruption by enabling clients to remain invested, avoiding time out of the market and incurring fees associated with exiting and reinvesting.

Edwina Maloney, AMP Group Executive, Platforms said:

“At North, we are committed to providing a frictionless experience for advisers on-platform, which is why advisers continue to choose us as the easiest platform to do business with in the market. 

“We’re always looking for ways to serve more advisers and increase the number of independent financial planners who call North home, which is why we’re focused on expanding North’s investment menu and delivering further additions aimed at increasing efficiency. 

“We recognise that advice practices with smaller balances have not traditionally been able to access bespoke managed portfolio solutions and we wanted to solve for this under-served segment of the market.

“Advisers are increasingly demanding resources that can help them deliver managed account solutions in a cost-effective and bespoke way to more clients.

“By investing in innovative platform functionality and flexibility, we’re helping deliver portfolio customisation at scale, empowering more advisers with our market-leading managed portfolio solutions and an exceptional platform that’s easy to use.”

^{1 According to North data}

^{2 SuitabilityHub’s 2024 Platform Market Wrap: page 63} 

^{3 Managed portfolio fees and costs on the Mercer APS CoreSeries Conservative and Balanced portfolios will both decrease by an estimated 0.08% per annum, with fees and costs on the Growth portfolio decreasing by an estimated 0.09% per annum. Please refer to current PDS for further fee and cost information.}