Our regular round-up of the latest insights on investment distribution

Outsourcing vs. insourcing

The debate rages on as to whether financial advisers should look after their clients’ investments and manage portfolios in-house or outsource them to a DFM. Following the RDR there was an uptick in advisers going down the outsourced route but in recent years we...

European Platforms in the money

Platform growth has accelerated across Europe. Assets under administration on platform are just shy of €2.5 trillion as at end of 2017. B2B platforms are four times bigger than direct platforms. While digital investing is the only way going forward it doesn’t have...

Platform malfunction – phew, it’s TSB

However much a company tries to do the right thing, sometimes it’s really hard to deliver the service it sets out to offer. TSB has worthy values – straightforward, transparent and responsible. It also has 8,500 staff working to meet the needs of customers, but...

RDR meets MiFID II

A key objective of the RDR was to create an industry with more clarity for consumers around products and services. However, according to our latest research, British investors do not feel better informed on fund costs than other Europeans: The proportion of British...

Man and machine: the need for a human touch

We know that robo propositions make up the fastest growing segment of the direct to consumer market in the UK and across Europe they now manage over €10bn. But while the growth story is impressive, acquisition is a real struggle. One global trend is robos looking...