Investment platform OpenInvest has continued to grow its partnerships with advice firms, supplying the technology for Sydney-based portfolio manager Peak Investment Partners to launch its online investment solution.
The new offering, Peak Invest, will initially provide access to its Australian Equities Growth Portfolio, which invests in the ASX 300 and targets a long-term gross total return of 7 to 8 per cent, for a minimum investment amount of $10,000, with access to its International Growth Portfolio becoming available in the coming weeks.
Peak Investment Partners managing director Ian Wenham said the online solution was aimed at clients for whom full-scale investment advice was too expensive.
“The adult children of our clients are keen to learn and are actively looking for professional investing assistance in the early stage of their wealth-creation journey. Unfortunately, the initial upfront cost of personal advice makes this all but impossible for most of them,” Wenham said.
“We think it’s fanciful for firms to expect loyalty from the children of existing clients later in life if their message to them today is essentially: ‘Sorry, we can’t help you – come back when you’re wealthy.’
“The technology exists to reach and help them now and we feel it’s part of our obligation to existing clients to have a solution for the broader family.”
He added the new investment solution meant the firm would not have to turn away prospective clients.
Peak chose to partner with OpenInvest as it enabled the firm to communicate to younger investors the rationale behind investment decisions it was making.
OpenInvest head of distribution Ravi Verma said the partnership, which is the 33rd for the platform, was based on a strategic logic of reaching a broader audience of aligned investors.
“What the partnerships all have in common is a recognition that beyond their existing ageing client base there’s a huge audience of ambitious and aspirational consumers out there, who are comfortable using technology to access and pay for professional expertise,” Verma said.
“These are not kids gravitating from their first foray using a cheap trading app, but come from all age demographics, with growing, and in many cases already sizable, levels of wealth.”
