The Platforum’s managing director said predictions for platform growth had to be revised in light of the new £15,000 ceiling on Isa savings and the scrapping of restrictions on individual allowances for cash, and stocks and shares.
Ms Mackay’s projections for an extra £5bn in sales were based on the assumption that half the 3m advised clients currently on platforms would put an extra £3,500 into the so-called ‘super Isas’.
Ms Mackay added that the total value of the advised platform market was now on course to hit £495bn by December 2016.
She said providers attempting to appeal to “less confident investors” and focusing on “guidance” would benefit the most from the changes, with Axa Self Investor, Bestinvest, Fidelity, Hargreaves Lansdown, rplan and The Share Centre thought to be particularly well-positioned.
Ms Mackay added that platforms also had huge scope to tap into savers who had yet to invest in stocks and shares, with 23 per cent (11.4m) of people in the UK thought to be in this category.
She said: “Combining cash and stocks and shares Isas will bring savers into closer proximity with the investment world and we could see greater interaction between the two.
“This could see more of the UK’s savers dip a toe into the investment space, especially at a time of low interest rates.”
ADVISER VIEW
Patrick Haines, regional head of advice at national wealth manager Close Brothers Asset Management, said chancellor George Osborne had finally addressed the “anomaly” of the previous tax-free saving system by merging the allowances for cash and stocks and shares, making the Isa route an “even more attractive haven” for savers.
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