Alternatively, platforms can target simpler market segments, such as workplace and direct, especially if they have a substantial book of orphan clients as a result of sunset clause unbundling.
Platforms can also reinvent themselves as wealth managers in their own right by buying adviser businesses and securing their own discretionary permissions. Running a platform is a scale game and, for some, trying to capture more of the value chain may prove a more appealing option than chasing scale.
Advisers should expect and prepare for further changes to the platform market as pensions freedoms make platform selection even more critical.
David Tiller is head of platform and wealth propositions at Standard Life
Sunset rule changes
90%
Percentage of advisory firms that feel prepared for the FCA’s ‘sunset’ rule changes, which will require all investment, platform and adviser fees to be charged separately for existing business from April 2016
89%
Amount of advisory firms surveyed that feel either ‘very confident’ or ‘somewhat confident’ that they will have the clients they wish to move to fees set up on such arrangements before April 2016
63%
Percentage of firms that have decided which clients they intend to move to fees, while 63 per cent have already moved clients’ legacy assets from trail commission to fees
Source: FundsNetwork survey
