Cofunds has defended its self-direct service by stating that rather than competing with advisers, the platform is helping those who no longer wished to service certain clients the opportunity to white label a direct to consumer proposition.
Back in May, Cofunds confirmed roughly 500 advisers who use the platform have opted for self-directed services created by the platform to enable some of their clients to run their own portfolios.
Speaking to FTAdviser,,
Stephen Wynne-Jones, head of marketing at Cofunds insisted, despite this move and the fact Legal & General plans to launch a direct to consumer platform using Cofunds’ technology, advisers could trust his firm not to compete with them.
He said: “We are not going to compete with you. We will not do a Fidelity.
“We do not want to go into competition with our adviser clients.”
Speaking to FTAdviser, Mr Wynne-Jones insisted the Legal and General-owned platform will not “do a Fidelity.”
At the start of this year, Fidelity undercut Hargreaves Lansdown with the fees for use of its direct-to-consumer platform, with lower administration fees and slightly cheaper average negotiated fund charges equating to an approximate discount of 0.1 per cent for sub-£250,000 clients.
Mr Wynne-Jones said far from competing with advisers, Cofunds was offering advisers who no longer wished to service certain clients the opportunity to white label a direct to consumer proposition.
Rather than simply hand over these clients to Cofunds and no longer have any contact with them, Mr Wynne-Jones said advisers will be offered the opportunity to request management information about their no longer regularly serviced investors.
He said Cofunds would therefore allow advisers to continue to have a relationship with clients they can no longer afford to service and re-establish regular contact when their circumstances change and they start to make larger contributions to their pension pots, for example.
However, Mr Wynne-Jones said if the adviser wanted to sever all ties with these clients, and could not find a rival adviser willing to take them on, then Cofunds would offer them their own direct to consumer service.
But he insisted Cofunds would only offer these clients direct access to the platform once a full discussion had taken place with the adviser about why they wished to sever ties.
