The shift to solutions is an important theme in investment distribution and our latest UK D2C: Investment Distribution report finds evidence of flows moving in that direction. This is encouraging for the D2C services that have focused development in this direction, and it presents opportunities for product providers.
Leading services are enjoying progressively increasing flows – AJ Bell, Fidelity and Hargreaves Lansdown all more than doubled net flows into investment solutions over the last three years. We saw particularly strong growth in investment solution AUM over 2024 at: Aviva, Barclays Smart Investor, Halifax Share Dealing and NatWest Invest; suggesting this approach is well suited to mass-affluent segments.
The shift towards solutions will be accelerated by the Advice Guidance Boundary Review with simplified advice and targeted support intended to bring investing to a wider audience. Banks, like Lloyds and NatWest, are working on simplified advice propositions, while neo-brokers, such as IG and eToro, are partnering with asset managers to build ETF-driven model portfolio services. Further opportunities exist for product providers to support service providers that don’t have in-house investment capability.
Guidance is evolving and while D2C select lists continue to influence distribution (which we quantify in the report), the action is currently around investment solutions.
We recently published our UK D2C: Investment Distribution report. For more information, please get in touch.