So we’re all still breathing, which is nice. I mean, it would have been a shame to go through tax year end only to have everything all blown to smithereens, wouldn’t it? Maybe not, don’t know. Anyway, here we are and it is the 26/27 tax year and I suppose we are all just going to have to make the best of it.
A shorter than usual Update today, mainly because I’m writing this on Wednesday morning instead of Tuesday night, and the sun is out, and I want to go and buy something for breakfast but I’m not allowed to until I’ve done this.
We’ve just put out our platform stats for 2025, and the main news is that it was a busy old year. Gross sales – so that’s money coming onto platforms – were just under £93bn for the platforms we include in our cohort, which excludes D2C and platforms which aren’t openly available for advisers to use. That’s the highest for ten years, and that segment of the market now looks after over £750bn of client money.
The human brain shorts out when we get to what Steve Bee used to call – maybe still does, who knows? – the ‘illion’ words. £750bn isn’t far off the entire UK government budget. With what platforms are looking after we could pretty much buy the FTSE 100, or just focus down and buy all of Apple and Microsoft and have money left over for ice cream. It’s A Lot, is the point, though not as much as the £1.4trn or whatever when you include D2C, insto and all the rest.
Let’s think about inflows a bit more. It turns out 40% of the inflows went to the top three platforms – Quilter, Transact and Aviva. So, despite the fact we all get excited about younger, arguably fresher propositions, the big continue to get bigger.
What those stats don’t tell us is where that money comes from. Platforms aren’t universally open about this; estimates of how much of gross flow is transfers in as opposed to ‘new new’ vary but it’s safe to say that it too is A Lot. The next question you’re asking – yes you are, don’t try and pretend – is whether that’s transfer money turning up from elsewhere such as old pensions and whatnot, or money sloshing around the platform market in a Polly Put The Kettle On kind of way, as I’ve written about before here.
That we don’t know, but along with record gross inflows for platforms in 2025, there were also record outflows. Whee! £72bn and change went straight back out the door, so over ¾ of the effort was basically wasted. Imagine doing a year’s work and only getting to keep a quarter of your reward. You may now insert your own Advanced Satirical Joke about tax.
Not all that money went straight back out on the floor for the Platform Dance; quite a lot of it disappeared out into Annuity Land which is the theme park next to Platform Land but with none of the exciting rides. Over 40% of firms we polled say they’re writing more or lots more annuities, and that is clearly a driver. As is people deciding that they either need to pay for things with money, or that they really are worried about the lunatics and want it out the market and in something more useful, like recreational pharmaceuticals.
A couple of other stats just to send you on your way – net sales into onshore and offshore bonds were both up over 80%. ISA net sales dived but GIA nets were up over 275%. There’s a lot going on…
Oh, and in case you were wondering, the platforms with the biggest gross sales also had the biggest net sales, though nets for some of the medium sized players were decent. So it’s not the case that the big’uns are shrinking when it comes to flows.
Anyway, some weeks you just need a stat infusion and that’s what you’ve just had. If you would like more of this sort of thing, we’ve just published State of the Platform Nation for 2025/26. This is the 14th edition, believe it or not. I am Very Old.
If you want all the proper stats and graphs and analysis and our assessment of all the platforms in the advised market, then you need to go get a copy. If you’re an adviser you do that by subscribing to Analyser at the Everything level and you can do that here. If you’re a provider you get in touch with us directly.
Your music choice this week is from a band I saw last Wednesday at the Mash House in Edinburgh – Last of Eden, who were supporting a pair of giant eagle-costume-wearing weirdos called Nordic Giants, who were neither giants nor Nordic but I suppose that’s not the point. Anyway, Last of Eden blew them off the stage I thought, and if you like heavyish post-rock stuff (like heavier Mogwai) then they are definitely one to watch. Here’s Until Tomorrow off of their new Chiaroscuro album, and I commend it to the House.
