Speaking at The Lang Cat's Home Truths conference last week, Clifton Asset Management director Anthony Carty said it was a long-held misconception that clients were serviced better under an independent umbrella.

Carty said that despite his Bristol-based firm being restricted, its processes are "not particularly different from a lot of independent firms" owing to their tendencies to work with only a small number of providers.

"When I look at the Financial Conduct Authority's definition of restricted versus independent, its laudable but largely impractical," he said. "Most independents I speak to, for many reasons, actually work with a limited number of providers.

"I'm not saying one is better than the other, I just think the conversation around restricted needs to change."

Carty confirmed Clifton Asset Management has "lots of acquisitions in the pipeline" - all independent firms using just one or two platforms or other providers.

"We unashamedly use one platform, our own, which we can price accordingly to scale," he said of Clifton's model. "The due diligence we have been through is extensive. We wanted to have a whole universe of assets available to use but we did not want to get caught out in a re-platforming type scenario."

Carty also argued that it was important firms consider where they may be in an external providers' pecking order under their independent model.

"We wanted a partnership where we were going to be commercially important to the third party, because then the level of service you get aligns with that," he explained. "We wants our own back office team, our own technology, and to grow by acquisition.

"We wanted to reduce the friction providing advice, so we have our own discretionary fund manager as well. The effect is that, with our own everything, all roads lead to Rome without having to use lots of third party providers."

While Carty acknowledged Clifton does use third parties in circumstances where its own platform proposition is not suitable, he added the efficiencies gained operating a restricted model "outweigh that of being independent".

He added: "I sleep easier at night when I think about all our different businesses but I don't have to think about why is adviser A is recommending platform X and why is adviser B is recommending another platform.

"I want to control the risk associated with giving advice and ultimately end up with consistent client outcomes."

On the technology front, Carty told conference attendees that there are hardly any friction points he has experienced with a restricted model.

"We are in control of our own tech stack," he said. "If we were using an outsourced back office provider or multiple third party platform providers, I would contend you are likely to have greater issues that we do."