In the first quarter of 2018, growth in adviser platform assets halted and they remain just shy of the £500bn mark. Equity markets have been less favourable over the quarter with a period of volatility halting the progress of 2017’s bull market.
The benefits of scale enable larger platforms to thrive and grow faster in absolute terms when markets are rising – as seen in 2017 – but the opposite happens when stock markets decline. The FTSE All-Share index fell by 7.8% over the first quarter of 2018. One billion pounds in net inflows can cover this sort of decline for a £10bn platform, but the largest platforms in the market with over £50bn can’t deliver the required flows to cover such market losses in any given quarter.
A number of platforms have delivered strong sales figures in Q1 and managed to withstand the market volatility and achieve muted growth. The second quarter has kicked off with a bang for stock markets, so any material losses are on track to soon be forgotten about come the end of June.
Whilst flows and AUA growth matter a great deal to platforms, advisers have placed more emphasis on usability and service this quarter. As many platforms go through technology upgrades, service and usability are higher profile issues, particularly when things go wrong.
The latest platform assets, flows and adviser opinions are covered in the UK Adviser Platform Guide which we published this week. Get in touch to find out more.