Aegon asks advisers to return overpaid fees

A spokesman for Aegon said an error on the provider's part meant some advisers received more in fees from clients than they should have.

As a result, Aegon is now asking advisers to return the over payment.

A spokesman for Aegon said: "We identified an issue which meant the incorrect adviser charge was applied to a small number of accounts.

"We have asked advisers to refund the overpayment so it can be applied to the customer's account and we have identified the source of the error and rectified it."

When a platform gets big, its technology will be ageing and that appears to be the elephant in the room.Clive Waller

The spokesman for Aegon said the error was separate to the wave of problems experienced by clients of the platform since May.

Back in May attempts to integrate the Cofunds platform it bought in August 2016 led to many clients being unable to access the service and having difficulty transferring away.

Clive Waller, who runs CWC Research, a consultancy firm focused on the platform industry, said: "The industry hasn't done itself any favours in the last 12 months or so. Aviva and Aegon appear to have underestimated the requisite resources.

"It is an industry problem. There is too much old technology (or no technology). Use of faxes, re-keying data between systems are the stuff of the last century. Issues around corporate actions seem to be increasingly a problem.

"The Catch 22 problem is that when a platform gets big, its technology will be ageing and that appears to be the elephant in the room."

david.thorpe@ft.com