NextWealth’s The Next Platform Shakeout report forms part of our Adviser Tech Stack series.

Over one fifth of financial advice firms with £250m or more in assets under advice (AuA) have or plan to launch a platform in the next five years. While the numbers have fluctuated since we published our first report on this trend in 2020, the shift is real and incumbent platforms are responding.

This report marks our third dedicated to the theme of financial advice firms becoming platform operators. The UK adviser platform market has undergone several transformations in its roughly 20-year existence. Technology advancements and growing scale of some advice firms has led to a rise of financial advice firms becoming platform operators to reduce risk, improve operational efficiency and improve client experience. Third-party platforms are responding, introducing models whereby advice firms to earn a fee for performing some of the services of the platform.

The purpose of this report is to quantify the scale of the shift and to articulate the future of platforms.

We seek to answer four critical questions in this report:

• Size: Is this a growing trend or have financial advice firms that will launch a platform already embarked on that path?
• Incumbents: How can third-party platform providers adapt to defend against asset loss?
• Drivers: What are the reasons why advice firms do / do not pursue this model?
• Future: What does the future look like for adviser platforms?

Who is the report for?

The report is designed to help financial advice firms, product providers, platforms and tech firms in developing roadmaps and in supporting business cases.

Methodology

This report is based on:

• Survey of 244 financial advice professionals.
• Data requests from eight white-label / model-b platforms
• 33 interviews (eight white-label platforms, five third-party platforms, four tech providers and 16 large financial advice businesses.

You can read more about the report by completing the form and downloading the sample report. Or get in touch at enquiries@nextwealth.co.uk to purchase a full copy.