IS SGT PEPPER AN ANTI-HERO? DIFFERENCES AND DIFFERENTIATION

IT WAS TWENTY YEARS AGO TODAY SGT PEPPER TAUGHT THE BAND TO PLAY”

It has also been about twenty years since the idea of Platforms, an online customer-centric hub for financial products, arrived in the UK. The nascent idea was that an adviser could see, and manage, all their clients’ holdings in one place – supplying slick and transparent servicing, simplifying reporting and fee management.

The first iteration in the UK was the fund supermarket, a move by a few fund providers to take control of distribution, soon followed by the ‘wrap platform’ which was aimed at helping advisers challenge the dominance of life companies in investment products. Both models attracted progressive ‘new model’ advisers and started to draw business away from established product providers.

It wasn’t long before established providers followed suit and moved toward this new way of engaging and serving advisers. As ‘A-Day’ came and went, the Life Companies moved towards a Self-Invested Personal Pension (SIPP) offering and the SIPP providers and wealth managers converged on platforms. Retail Distribution Review (RDR) was the catalyst which led to the explosion of the platform market as a way for advisers to access whole-of-market investment solutions and ease payment of advice fees. This new model had disrupted the market to give advisers nearly everything in one place.