THE ever-evolving online financial organisation Sanford Limited has announced the launch of Online Capital Partners (OCP) which they claim is the first dedicated online investment bank in Australia.
While OCP is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Sanford, the company will have an independence from its parent and other companies within the group on revenue, resourcing and mandate to grow distribution.
OCP Managing Director Simon Bell said that OCP had been founded to grow a successful online investment bank in the mould of Wit Capital in the USA.
The primary principles of the company being:
l Efficient online distribution and communications.
l Extensive distribution through online brokers, financial planners and traditional full service brokers.
l Research. OCP and Sanford technologies have been working together to develop an efficient communications and online application system. All communications and online advisors are via electronic means.
This reduces the need for hard copy prospectus and mailing which offers huge cost savings. And between one and two weeks are saved in time it would take to mail and receive the post.
Mr Bell said that what made it exciting was that his company could now offer retail investors and financial planners a superior service in terms of access to the information.
“We also cut the time from prospectus lodgement to listening on the ASX by up to 50 per cent through the electronic dispatch of information and receipt of applications,” he said.
“This reduces a company’s exposure to the market and reduces the amount of time an investor’s application is held in trust.”
OCP says it has established distri-bution relationships with six of Australia’s leading online financial services companies with a combined client retail base in excess of 300,0000.
Through Sanford Virtual Broker, OCP has access to 70 financial planner dealer groups with more than 4000 advisors and nearly 900,000 clients.
In addition, OCP has good working relationships with a number of full service brokers.
“This extensive reach through each of these channels gives OCP an enormous distribution capacity,” Mr Bell said.
“The third aspect of the business is the ability to provide ongoing inform-ation on companies supported by OCP through research.
“”All too often companies float and receive little ongoing support from the sponsoring broker.
“We have put together a quality team, of analysts to ensure all companies that we work with will be covered by ongoing research.”
OCP has offices and a team of professionals based in its Sydney, Melbourne and Perth offices.
Sanford Limited CEO Steven Goh, said: “Through OCP’s online relation-ship and Sanford’s Virtual Broker clients, OCP boasts one of the largest retail investor networks in Australia.
“OCP will be an important revenue stream for Sanford’s diversified online financial services business. OCP will focus on managing and lending the distribution of product and securities offerings in the retail focused $5-$50 million range.
“In larger issues, OCP will work with other leading brokers including major shareholder UBS Warburg.
“OCP is effectively the hub for prospectus offerings, accessing offerings from a number of sources and then distributing through its three channels; online financial service providers including Sanford Securities, National online Trading and Investor Web, financial planners and traditional brokers through Sanford Virtual Broker.”
