You can embed investment propositions that meet the requirements of suitability, consistency and good value that would make good sense to any sensible, objective, professional observer. Sadly, this does not include the FSA, which has just confirmed its bizarre view that independence means you have to consider any investment product, however obscure, for every client. This requirement is far tougher than any on doctors, accountants and lawyers, all of whom can exclude areas of expertise from their practice and refer clients to others.
This requirement will push many advisers towards a restricted proposition. Once that hurdle has been overcome, it makes sense to see what other benefits there are when IFA status becomes a non-issue.
Research tells us that two-thirds of national and network firms intend to offer a restricted proposition, whereas two-thirds of all advisers intend to remain independent.
The issue of IFA-branded platforms is not new. In a piece of work for JP Morgan Funds Hub some 10 years ago, advisers were asked if they wanted to “own brand” the platform. Many did.
Providers such as Standard Life Wrap emphasised that the key message was around wrap being a service rather than a product. If the IFA is delivering a service using a platform then presumably they would want their own brand in front of the client rather than that of the provider, particularly when giving online access to clients to view their portfolio.
With RDR and the move to developing client service propositions, this is certainly a popular feature of the platform. A number of IFAs also have a link from their website directly to their wrap platform and this enables a common look and feel across their proposition.
Gillian Hepburn, director of Edinburgh-based Quality Platform Solutions, said: “I believe that by ‘branding’ their platform, IFAs also then feel more comfortable in terms of the whole issue around ‘who owns the client’. In a sense this further distances the wrap provider from the IFAs’ clients.
“Unfortunately, the downside is primarily with the documentation produced by the platform.
“While any reports generated by the IFA, such as valuations and performance reports could be produced with the IFA brand on them, any client-facing documentation produced by the platform provider, such as illustrations, contract notes, annual statements, direct debit mandates, are still branded by the provider, generally for regulatory reasons.”
Branding
So while the IFAs are trying to promote a branded service proposition through their platform, the client was still receiving mail directly from the provider.
Ascentric offers the ability to brand the service for adviser firms so that it looks like the IFA web service as well. They also go one step further. They also offer a white label service so that the whole proposition is tailored to the distributor, for example, charges, charging structure, products and wrappers. This has proved very successful. But there is a demand to go even further.
