Lloyds and Schroders stepping into the advice gap

This week we heard more about Schroders Personal Wealth, the joint venture with Lloyds which aims to become a ‘top three UK financial planning business within five years’. The RDR largely killed off financial advice in bank branches as well as wresting control...

Democratising investing

Investing is beginning to reach further into the mass market. Our latest Consumer Insights research shows that 29% of British adults are investors, a steady increase over the past couple of years. While the robos have been the cheerleaders of the ‘democratisation of...

Price fixing

The big news this week has been the acquisition of Alliance Trust Savings by Interactive Investor. Adding the £15bn of new assets, this makes Interactive Investor a substantial platform – one of the largest D2C platforms, and with a foothold in the adviser market....

Earning ‘wealth tech’ wings

Platform M&A activity has been bubbly of late in the UK and Europe, prompting questions on platform valuations. In continental Europe, MiFID II’s complexities will boost outsourcing. Allfunds is expanding rapidly on the back of this and FNZ’s acquisition of ebase...

Exporting investment expertise to Asia

As Brexit looms, what opportunities lie further afield for investment managers? We all know about wealth creation in Asia and the expansion of the middle classes. China is by far the largest new market for investment but it is largely closed to international asset...