Funds Administration NZ executive director Graham Duston says its Synergy investment programme is being offered with advisory firm Consilium.

He says going through the DIMS application process was “arduous” and time consuming.

Duston says the advisory industry is going through a tough period of change with three key factors causing the disruption.  DIMS, he says, will help address some of these issues.

Rising compliance costs is one of the issues and many advisers will have uneconomic clients.

The third issue is high total fees.

“I just don’t think they are sustainable,” he says.

He says one of the things about DIMS is that “for the first time in history put down total costs to clients.”

He suggests some firms had pulled out of the DIMS process as they didn’t want to reveal, in such an open way, the total costs to clients.

With DIMS advisers will need to segment their databases and treat each group differently. In the SBS/FANZ model clients with less than $1 million will be serviced with the Synergy DIMS solution and bigger clients will get a “soft-touch” and more personal service.

With Synergy “we can bring wholesale investments to party.

“One of the great things about DIMS is that you lower the overall cost to the investor.

Duston says although FANZ has only worked with its bank-aligned advisers previously it now wants to build a scalable business that it can take to the wider market.

The Synergy offer is expected to be rolled out next month.