The worst of all worlds

You couldn’t make it up. I’m yet to meet anyone who thinks unit rebates are a good idea. That’s not quite true. I know one provider who likes them, mainly because they have the functionality in place to deal with them and they reckon there’s a competitive advantage there (that may not be how they’d […]

Clean is the new dirty

Hello and welcome to the first lang cat blog of 2013. At least the first blog on this site, I,ve been doing some posting over on Adviser Lounge, which is worth a visit if you haven,t already. So the hot issue at the moment, now that RDR is here, is fund rebates and their wily […]

Slainte mhath from the lang cat

Well, that’s been quite a year. As I look around me I see an industry full of completely done-in, knackered, farmutshet folks. Don’t know why, it’s not like anything big’s happening at the end of 2012… …Ho, ho. As I write, it looks like pretty much all the providers have just about got most of […]

Turning up for dessert – AJ Bell joins the unbundled dinner party

OK, so we have a new toy to play with. The toy is AJ Bell’s new Sippcentre pricing structure, and (colours to the mast), it’s a good’un. AJ Bell is the last of the big guys to the transparency table, so their structure will generate considerable interest. It does need a little unpacking though, so […]

the lang cat Guide To Platform Pricing – now live

So today the lang cat launches its very first commercially available market analysis report. Its title is ‘You want how much?’ and the subject, predictably, is platform pricing. We’re pretty excited about it. You can get a sneakypeeky here (just click on the image of the report). The cornerstone of the Guide is an analysis […]

Fashionably late – Skandia joins the transparency gang

There was SIMPLY NO WAY that I’d be able to let this go by. What a day for Skandia, and what a triumph of news management. With UK inflows on SIS dropping 40% and a reminder in the analyst statements that only £20bn or so of the near £40bn it’s credited with having is on […]

Standard Life to the transparency diary room

<<EDIT – Since writing this SL has been in touch – hi, how you doing – to say that I got the charging structure wrong – the charge on the total pot changes at various trigger points rather than a set charge applying to each tranche. Very happy to amend – this stuff has to […]

Noddle use required

So I had an interesting day yesterday at the Platforum regional roadshow in sunny Polmont (aim for the big oil refinery, you can’t miss it, unless you’re Holly). Lots of good sessions, free flip-flops on the Aviva stand and, most importantly, Rory Percival, the FSA’s technical specialist on platformy things. Incidentally, Glasvegas wrote a song […]

Unbundling and the Big Three

Well now, I was never going to be able to resist this. 2 April 2012 was the day that the first of the Big Three fund supermarkets got their act together and launched into the unbundled space. Fidelity FundsNetwork were the winner, beating Cofunds by a lap or so, with Skandia still faffing around in […]

Unbundling and the Big Three

Well now, I was never going to be able to resist this. 2 April 2012 was the day that the first of the Big Three fund supermarkets got their act together and launched into the unbundled space. Fidelity FundsNetwork were the winner, beating Cofunds by a lap or so, with Skandia still faffing around in […]

Impact of poor service

/ White papers

The Impact of Poor Service

We provided the research for a report, in conjunction with Parmenion, which reveals how far short of expectations many adviser platforms are falling. The research found that over the last 12 months, 88% of advisers needed to apologise to at least one of their clients on behalf of a platform, and that poor service delivery from platforms impacts 91% of advisers every day.

Impact of poor service

/ White papers

The Impact of Poor Platform Service

We provided the research for a report, in conjunction with Parmenion, which reveals how far short of expectations many adviser platforms are falling. The research found that over the last 12 months, 88% of advisers needed to apologise to at least one of their clients on behalf of a platform, and that poor service delivery from platforms impacts 91% of advisers every day.

/ White papers

Answering the Call

Service means a lot of things to a lot of different people. It’s so subjective it can be hard to put your finger on. This paper aims to challenge the status quo and inertia that’s built up in the sector for many years.