Following the delay of the FSA’s platform paper, A J Bell conducted research with 100 adviser firms to test their appetite in the bundled versus unbundled debate.
When looking at how the platform charges are structured, the results showed that only 1% of respondents favoured the bundled approach with all others favouring either clean pricing or a combination of both.
On the subject of fund pricing, clean pricing was once again the favoured route with 72% opting for an approach where any rebate and platform fee is stripped out of the fund price.
Billy Mackay, Marketing Director at A J Bell said, “You can be sure that price will continue to play an important part in any platform due diligence process. Over recent months, platform pricing has been a little bit like a game of cat and mouse with many firms announcing snippets of information about their future plans. As the year goes on you can expect more to show their hand, we will be publishing full details of our new Sippcentre pricing in the summer.
Mackay continued, “Whilst the platforms seem unable to agree on the most appropriate approach to charging, these findings show that advisers are at one and clearly favour clean pricing.”