Platform Service Review

Service Review

Platform Service Review

The results of our annual platform service survey are now available. The survey asked financial advisers to rank the most important aspects of service and then rate their own experience of platform providers.

The results were then plotted, identifying gaps in satisfaction experience.

Defaqto conducted the survey between August and September 2022. The survey measured the relative importance of 11 satisfaction categories and identified the advisers’ preferred platforms.

The study measured how satisfied the advisers were with their preferred providers and identified where expectations were being met by cross-matching ranked importance to ranked satisfaction.

By Darren Winfield
Insight Consultant (Wealth)

March 2023

Best performing platforms

The best performing platforms for satisfaction this time are Wealthtime and True Potential with 11 and 7 appearances respectively in the top three slots across all categories.

Top categories

The top four categories for importance this year were unchanged since last year. New business administration and Existing business administration were ranked first and second. With the exception of New business administration, all categories achieved lower importance scores than in the last study.

Preferred providers

15 platform providers received sufficient nominations, as preferred providers, to enable us to compute provider-specific satisfaction levels. Aviva and Quilter (previously Old Mutual Wealth) were the most popular choices.

Expectations

Expectations are being met or exceeded for 6 out of the 11 categories of service, an improvement on last year's study.

2023 Platform Service Review

The percentage of advisers placing 100% of their business on platform has decreased from last year and the percentage using platforms for less than 50% of their business has increased. However, platforms remain an important part of firms’ centralised propositions with those placing 75% on platform remaining constant.
28% of advisers said they had changed one or more of their preferred platforms in the last 12 months. This has jumped up from 19% last year and is more consistent with results from previous years where upwards of 25% said they had changed provider. This may reflect mergers and acquisitions rather than dissatisfaction, the platform market now being more settled following all the replatforming and technology upgrades of previous years.
Advisers, on average, nominated 1.38 different platforms as preferred providers compared with 1.3 last time. This suggests that a considerable number of providers are using less than one platform with their clients. However, only 10% said this was the case when questioned and 44% said they operated a panel of platforms.
The three out of the top four categories for importance all increased their satisfaction scores compared to last year. New business administration was the highest performing category and Reporting the lowest.

View the full review here