A new report “from the coalface” of super fund investing has gone some way to quantifying the cost of shonky investment management, with members potentially losing out on hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Surging equity markets have driven the Future Fund’s return higher, but its prediction that inflation will be stickier than expected has been born out and it “remains conscious of the potential for significant deterioration”.
Frontier sets Partners Platform upgrade for 2020 release
Frontier Advisors expects to release its new information technology platform tools for clients, known as ‘Partners Platform 2.0’, later this year, the asset consulting firm said in its annual review for clients published last week.
Andrew Polson, Frontier’s chief executive, said: “We realised the role technology can play in an institutional advice model many years ago. While some of our competitors are now working to develop their own technology solutions, we are investing to evolve our existing offering to make it even more insightful and enabling for clients in 2020.”
Key design features of the upgraded platform tools will include:
- Asset owner-centric design. The firm says its 25 years of experience as an investment advisor underpins the design of its tools
- A dynamic, flexible and scalable platform, allowing delivery of highly customised technology solutions specific to a client’s needs
- More sophisticated monitoring, research and portfolio construction tools, which will be connected with client workflows
- Customisable dashboards, which will be dynamic, user-friendly and will focus on drawing attention to critical information, and
- Rapid development under a new “agile” approach. The firm says it will be able to “continuously deliver”, which means that new releases can be available on a weekly or daily basis.
In the review, Frontier says: “As markets become increasingly complex, it is critical for asset owners to continue advancing their understanding of their portfolios – including key drivers, linkages and sensitivities. As a result and, embracing the very latest technology and approaches to software delivery, we have spent 2019 redesigning our platform. This has required a significant shift in approach and a large investment in new capabilities. However, we believe this is the key to Frontier continuing to provide world class technology solutions to all clients.”
Last year Frontier created a dedicated development team of in-house software engineers, quantitative developers, solutions architects and database management specialists.
– G.B.
