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

When it launched in 2009, Aviva famously sought to become the secondary platform of choice for advisers. More recently, however, it has become quietly ambitious, steadily increasing its share of business from existing users.It is winning business from new sources...

After our Friday missive last week on the future of platforms we had a few queries about the rise of DFM assets on platform. We are hearing consistently from advisers that they would like to see more DFM managed assets on platform. Advisers have well-founded...

Are there any investment platforms left that aren’t up for sale? One could be excused for thinking that a quizzical faint-heartedness has struck the industry’s leaders, heads of adviser platforms in particular. Investment platforms are the preferred route to market...

Ascentric's parent company,Royal London, sold the client book of its D2C proposition Fundsdirect in 2015, signalling a clear intent to concentrate on providing services to the intermediary market. However, we have seen a shift away from advisers using Ascentric as...

In last week’s email, we hinted that robo-advisers could be coming to an office near you and asked if this posed another threat to the retail advice sector? We have long said that so-called “robo-advisers” (automated tools guiding investors to decisions) are a boon...

This week Jeremy Fawcett (@jfawcett), Head of Direct, reveals the results of our recent test driving exercise for direct platforms… Today we publish our latest D2C update on the investor experience and we’re seeing improvements. It’s fashionable to bash financial...