Challenger’s award winning annuities are now available via Colonial First State’s leading FirstChoice and FirstWrap platforms, a significant initiative aimed at improving retirement outcomes that will enable growth in the Australian annuities market.
“This is an important development with the leading provider of retail investment platforms. It is part of a growing superannuation industry trend to make retirement income strategies more readily available,” said Paul Rogan, Challenger’s Chief Executive, Distribution, Product and Marketing.
“Annuities via platform are a game changer for advisers as it improves the ease and accessibility of delivering retirement income solutions to their clients.”
This is supported by new research showing 65% of financial advisers expect the availability of annuities through major investment platforms will increase the use of annuities.
Of these advisers, most (66%) think that annuity recommendations will increase by between 10 and 20 per cent, according to research company Marketing Pulse. (See note 1.)
In addition, 27% of advisers who don’t currently recommend annuities, said that they would within the next 12 months, which further suggests that the availability of annuities through platforms will have an impact.
Mr Rogan said: “Access to annuities via platforms helps advisers meet clients’ needs to manage market, inflation and longevity risk. It facilitates an income-layering approach to retirement portfolio construction which combines account-based pensions with annuities to manage retirees’ concerns of outliving their savings.”
Challenger recently announced partnerships with two other industry players. In the industry super fund sector, VicSuper has launched the first Comprehensive Income Product for Retirement-style solution, as recommended by the Financial System Inquiry. It includes Challenger annuities to provide guaranteed income.
In addition, leading administration provider AAS has also partnered with Challenger to make annuities accessible on its platform. AAS services the needs of 10 million super fund members.
Note 1: According to the July 2015 Marketing Pulse omnibus survey of financial advisers
Source: Challenger
