Aegon has confirmed advisers face significant delays in performing some key transactions for their clients on the provider's platform.
A month ago, on the May Day Bank Holiday weekend, more than 400,000 Cofunds users and £37bn of assets were moved across to the Aegon Platform.
Aegon bought Cofunds in 2016 for £140m and had been planning the integration of the two platforms ever since.
This was the third stage in the integration of Cofunds with Aegon, with the Investor Portfolio Service and institutional service having upgraded in December and March respectively.
But a month since advisers using Cofunds were shifted across to Aegon's platform, a spokesman for the provider admitted due to significant demand for the fund supermarket there has been an impact on internal processing times that meant timescales detailed in service agreements were not being met.
However the spokesman added Aegon has increased resource to bolster the support on offer to platform users.
The statement from Aegon came as a result of FTAdviser approaching the platform with several examples, provided by advisers, of the kind of delays being experienced by intermediaries using the platform.
Aegon emailed one particular adviser with a menu of the time delays he should expect when using the platform to perform a wide range of functions.
For example, Aegon stated a transfer authority, which the adviser's service level agreement stated should take two days, is currently expected to take an additional six days.
Withdrawals of income, which according to the adviser's service agreement should take two days, Aegon is currently warning could now take an extra six days.
Advisers expecting cheques, which normally take two days to issue, have also been told by Aegon they should now expect to wait an extra 11 days.
Transferring from a Government Investment Account to an Isa, which under the service level agreement is supposed to take two days, is now expected to take an extra 11 days, Aegon warned.
The adviser, who did not wish to be named, said: “Unfortunately, despite the ridiculous extensions quoted, our experience is that even the extended timescales in the second column are wishful thinking.
"At least they are very well resourced so will get it sorted in the end and compensate clients for any loss or shortfall but what about the IFAs that were loyal to Cofunds? Businesses grinding to a halt thanks to a poorly executed, badly managed launch of untested IT.”
His experience is mirrored by that of advisers from around the country, who have contacted FTAdviser.
John Phillips, founder of John Phillips Financial Planning in Swansea, said “I have been chasing a drawdown payment requested on the 9 May.
"The application stated funds to be sold, only for me to get a ‘Third party payments’ notice saying insufficient cash in the account.
"Not knowing who ‘Third party payments' were, it nearly ended up in the bin. This has happened twice so far."
Sam Caunt, who runs Morae Finacial Planning in Northampton, said a client of his has lost money as a result of the Aegon platform problems.
He said a lack of certainty around when the platform would be able to make funds held by a client available meant the client had to use other funds and incur a tax charge.
Ian Lowes, managing director at Lowes Financial Management in Newcastle said: "After the initial elation at the apparent success of the data migration its been somewhat of a frustrating month since, to say the least. Whilst we know that Aegon are well resourced and will eventually resolve the issues, in the meantime intermediaries and any clients attempting to transact are suffering significant detriment. We are hopeful of a speedy recovery!"
david.thorpe@ft.com
