Some advice firms with tenders out for platform changes aren’t considering any existing platform providers anymore, according to Seccl’s chief executive officer David Ferguson.
In FTAdviser’s latest podcast, Ferguson - best known for founding Nucleus - said in pitches to become advice firms' technology provider, Seccl is often going up against the likes of FNZ, Hubwise, Pershing and SEI, rather than against household platform names.
“It tends to be bigger advice groups we speak to, but they’re never considering one of the existing platforms as their future choice,” said Ferguson.
“It’s a long time since you saw headlines saying a ‘X, Y, Z large financial planning business has chosen A, B, C platform, where that platform is a renowned provider.
“I think there’s an acceptance that technology has changed and moved on substantially and it’s time for something different.”
Ferguson also spoke about platform pricing. He said the bigger issue is clients are not getting value for money across the board and are paying around 50 per cent more than they should be.
“While platforms have pretty warmly welcomed tiered pricing, you don’t see that very much in the advice market…There’s no reason why those things can’t extend across the chain,” said Ferguson.
“If you do that, you can start to make material inroads to making this whole thing more efficient.”
To listen to the full podcast, click on the link above.
ruby.hinchliffe@ft.com