// Platforms Tag

25 Mar 2019 7im cuts rates for HNW investors

In a move that cements its position as a platform for high-net-worth investors and family offices, 7im has cut fees for investors with more than £2m on platform. From 1st April, investors with between £2m and £5m will see their fees fall from 0.15% to 0.08% for assets between £2m and £5m, while those with more than £5m will see fees drop from 0.15% to 0.05% on balances over £5m.

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21 Mar 2019 How do platform exit charges stack up?

Following the recent release of the FCA’s Investment Platforms Market Study final report, the regulator has launched a consultation on the exit charge issue which will consider either a ban or cap on platform exit fees. The potential ban on the charging of exit fees by platforms will, the regulator believes, improve competition and make it easier for investors to switch platforms. Here we drill down into who charges and who doesn’t in the platform world.

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26 Feb 2019 Standard Life cuts charges on Elevate

Standard Life today announced a price decrease for its Elevate platform for all new clients from 1st April 2019. This is a great move by Standard Life. It demonstrates a commitment to its core financial planning market and willingness to share economies of scale with advisers and end-consumers.
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04 Jan 2019 Where will the platform industry be in five years’ time?

For the last 10 years we've produced annual five-year projections based on industry trends and the economic outlook and their likely impact on the platform industry. 2018 has been a challenging environment for the industry with some platforms taking a far larger slice of the action than others. Despite the challenging environment, the overwhelming consensus from platform leaders is that platforms that can support advisers to support their clients have a long-term sustainable future.
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28 Aug 2018 Deconstructing the FCA’s Platform Study Interim Report

The FCA’s interim platform report has already been well and truly thrashed out by trade journals and other research houses. However, we believe that our tools and research are ideal for proactively engaging with the regulator’s long-term objectives and have reviewed the interim report on that basis. But first let’s start with the basics: why, who and what.

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11 Jul 2018 Nucleus aims to float…

Nucleus has finally confirmed what we’d suspected for sometime: it’s going to float on the London Stock Exchange’s AIM market. Transact was the first to take the plunge on 2nd March and in the same month AJ Bell announced that it was preparing a flotation in late 2018/early 2019. Nucleus’s announcement came on 2nd July, but it’s working to a punchy calendar and plans to have the whole thing tied up by late July, which is pretty fast by anyone’s book. 
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17 Nov 2017 New kids on the block in the platform world

After almost two decades of the market being dominated by three or four technology providers, there are several new platform technologies emerging. There’s been a lot of noise about Hubwise and Embark, but Seccl will soon be out there drumming up business too. All of them have the potential to disrupt the platform market. Their competitive advantage lies in the fact that they provide pared down, focused propositions that have none of the legacy technology and inefficiencies in existing technologies.
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15 Nov 2017 Lies, damn lies and statistics

ISA activity was less pronounced in the third quarter of 2017, with sales dropping to £1.5bn. However, pensions picked up the slack and generated around 70% of platforms’ net flows. This was due to a combination of investors exercising their pension freedom rights and the steady pipeline of DB transfers.
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10 Jul 2017 BEYOND MS15/2.3 – CHALLENGING THE RESEARCH MARKET

Last year, the Gatekeepers report caused a stir in the industry by being the first to shine a light on potential biases in fund ratings. This year’s edition is bigger, better and bolder with a wealth of practical information to help fund managers navigate this challenging post MS15/2.3 market. As well as re-assessing the gatekeeper market, we’ve taken a closer look at the efficacy of active fund management, sorted the really active wheat from the closet-tracking chaff, and looked at the value chain from a regulatory perspective and the potential for further scrutiny and investigation.
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30 May 2017 Spring has sprung…

...and hope springs eternal

We ran the spring sentiment survey in the last week of April (we waited until after the first round of the French presidential election on 23rd April) until mid May. In all, there were 84 responses. Fund groups represented 62%, platforms 25% and distributors 13%. The audience was mainly British (77% ) and the rest cross-border. Economic recovery has been gaining ground in the UK, Europe and the US. Despite geopolitical uncertainty, investor sentiment improved, optimism was in the air and there was a strong uptick in business volumes. However, caution underpinned everything. The open comments were more restrained and measured than the answers given to multiple-choice questions. This reflects sales patterns since the start of the year. Though Q117 is one of the best on record, there has been a particularly heavy allocation to fixed income. In summary, over the next 12-18 months fee pressure, crumbling margins and the rise of passive/robo loom very large on the horizon. As does a very expensive MiFID2 exercise.
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15 Feb 2017 Investment platform industry highlights

We're in an extended lockdown phase as several platform clients will not be reporting their results to the stock exchange until March. That's a pretty long wait so here are a few investment platform industry highlights to keep you going until the Fundscape Platform Report is issued. 
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02 Feb 2017 The year ahead – January sentiment survey

The Trump effect
  • We ran the sentiment survey in the second and third week of January. By this point, Trump’s shock election as president of the US was beginning to sink in, but he had yet to take office. The run-up to his inauguration and cabinet/adviser appointments were front-page news.
  • In all, we there were 82 responses to the survey. Fund groups represented 67%, platforms 31% and distributors 2%.
  • The audience was mainly British with 78% of respondents defining themselves as UK-based and the rest cross-border or international.
  • Interestingly, there was a significant dichotomy between the positive expectations for 2017 (answers to the multiple choice questions) and the pessimistic concerns voiced in the open questions.
  • Overwhelmingly, the geopolitical environment and specifically Brexit, Trump and forthcoming elections in Europe were the main concern.
  • At the time of writing, the fixed income rotation into equity was in full swing and stock-market indices had hit all-time highs.
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