Alex Cowan-Sanluis: Platforms are hiding in the bell curve

The bell curve of client banks

clock • 4 min read

Control of a platform is only meaningful if it extends across the full client spectrum. Anything less is a partial solution, writes Alex Cowan-Sanluis

The client banks of most advice businesses, when mapped on a graph by amount of assets, resemble a bell curve. The majority sit in the broad middle: steady accumulators, retirees drawing income, and households with ISAs, pensions and general investment accounts.  Adviser platforms, generally, are comfortably camped under the meaty middle portion of that curve. That middle 80% is where most platform propositions are built to operate. It makes sense: it's efficient, relatively simple to serve, and commercially attractive.  But what of the ‘10%' at either end? How are those clients se...

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