Craigs becomes NZX Wealth Technologies' first customer

The investment firm has moved $950 million onto the platform. Photo/123RF.

Craigs Investment Partners has become NZX's first external customer for a new wealth technologies platform which offers a combined registry, administration and custodial service.

Craigs has moved $950 million of its total $16 billion in funds under management onto NZX Wealth Technologies, adding to the NZX-managed funds which take its total funds under administration to $2 billion.

Craigs' head of client services, Stephen Jonas, says the NZX service will maintain a register of Craigs clients, administer client orders and ensure their investments are held securely.

It will mean his company won't have to put resources and people into managing its mainly high net worth clients and that it won't have control issues, he says.

"Once we've bedded in the system, we will then take a review as to how we will service the rest of our business."

Craigs hired a third-party adviser, Mosaic Consulting, to review New Zealand and Australian providers which could cater for the wide range of different kinds of clients Craigs has, Jonas says.

While Craigs did engage with an Australian provider, "we found once we got into tax and KiwiSaver, the costs were quite astronomical."

The NZX platform was already dealing with the New Zealand tax regime and already manages individual accounts, which was why Craigs chose it as its partner.

NZX head of wealth technologies, Lisa Brock, said signing Craigs up to the service is a significant milestone and her team will now shift its focus to sales and product refinement "as we reach out to the pipeline of potential customers who have shown interest in the product."