ProtectionOct 24 2014

Call for platforms to offer structured products

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Advisers are calling on platform providers to make structured products more readily available, StructuredProductReview.com founder Ian Lowes has said.

Mr Lowes, who is also managing director of Newcastle-based Lowes Financial Management, said: “I have little doubt that if structured products were accessible on platforms, and the platforms provided more than just a product name on a list, then more advisers would use them.

“I call on advisers who share this thinking to lobby the relevant platforms to offer structured products.”

He said that for platforms to serve the adviser community, they needed to offer access to a wide range of investments and make it cost-efficient to purchase structured products on platforms. This, he said, was because cost was raised as a concern in the survey in regard to using platforms to buy structured products.

Mr Lowes added: “Given that the FCA made it clear that structured products and investment trusts must be considered by any adviser who wishes to call themselves independent, it seems to me that any platform for the adviser market should facilitate these investments.”

His comments came following a survey among 205 advisers by StructuredProductReview.com, which revealed that 70 per cent of advisers believed it would improve their client service proposition if such investment products were available on their favoured platform.

Hugo Thorman, managing director of Ascentric, said: “We offer a good range of structured products, both exchange-traded and direct-to-provider offerings, and are happy to put others on, but the demand is just not as it used to be.”

Adviser View

Mike Pendergast, director of Chester-based Zen Financial Services, said: “It would be very convenient to have structured products on one platform as you could recommend them to clients.

“At the moment, if you want to use them you must go through a separate process and separate valuation. If they were on the same platform, then they would be included in a client’s consolidated statements.”