Aviva platform boss on filling 'gaps' and becoming advisers' first choice

Ward, who joined Aviva in April last year, told FTAdviser that the group plans to add a suite of junior products, alongside a series of other developments.

These include an ESG profiler tool to help advisers track impact to client portfolios over time, the ability to provide a centralised investment proposition in the context of ESG, as well as more search and select functionality.

All these features are being built in conjunction with FNZ, Aviva’s core technology provider. 

“We think we’re in a really strong position given where some of the rest of the industry is,” said Ward. “We’ve got a stable offering and a great experience. The challenge is spreading that, so advisers who don’t use Aviva and never have understand what we’re building.

“We do have some gaps that we’re going to fill this year, so a Junior Isa and a junior suite is a key focus based on adviser feedback.”

Interview in brief:

• Aviva to launch junior suite of products this year, along with portfolio impact tool and further ESG enhancements.
• Provider keen to keep a “clean” platform pricing model and avoid adding “revenue-generating widgets”.
• Succession - the IFA the insurance group acquired last year - has now added Aviva to its platform panel following review.
• Ward: Adviser-as-platform model generates 'more noise than demand', all advisers want is voices at the table and good service.
• Since the pandemic, Aviva has stopped requiring experience from candidates joining its distribution team to tackle talent pool shortages.
• Due diligence around what sits on platforms, and what is moved on and off it - ie, cross-cutting - will become a bigger focus for providers under consumer duty.

Secondary to primary choice platform

Asked whether Aviva intends to charge extra for some of its platform developments, such as the portfolio impact tool, Ward said the provider is keen to keep a “clean” platform pricing model and avoid adding “revenue-generating widgets”.

Since 2019, the platform has made some 120 improvements and intends to add to this number.

Ward is keen to make further improvements which sit somewhere between big, costly developments and changes so small they are hard to add.

We’re really conscious about what we add to the platform. We could add lots of things to the platform, and add lots of risk, but then your cost goes up.Al Ward, Aviva

“We’re not adding extra, revenue-generating widgets to the platform. We don’t need to,” said Ward.

“We’re really conscious about what we add to the platform. Because we could add lots of things to the platform, and add lots of risk, but then your cost goes up.”

Ward envisages advisers using the Aviva platform for the majority of their business, saying the provider has seen an uptick in transfer requests from advisers to move more assets onto the platform.

Aviva is already one of the most used platforms among advisers, according to a recent survey by the Lang Cat which found 44 per cent out of 602 respondents used it.

But around double the amount of advisers use it as their secondary platform (42 per cent) versus as their primary (23 per cent), which therein lies the challenge.

At the end of the third quarter of 2022, assets under management on the platform were £37.61bn, and the number of active users - those who have placed business on the platform in the last 12 months - was 7,666 at the end of 2022.

Succession reviews platform panel and adds Aviva

Last year, Aviva bought advice firm Succession for £385mn allowing it to offer advice to approximately six million of its customers.

Succession’s advisers use a panel of platforms, but at the end of last year the now Aviva-owned advice firm carried out a review of its providers.

They [Succession] did another review and said ‘yeah, actually we’re going to add Aviva to the panel’.Al Ward, Aviva

As part of this review, Succession has now added Aviva’s platform to its panel. The last time Succession did a platform panel review, Aviva was going through a major migration.

When Aviva started out with its platform, ‘Aviva Adviser’, it was more of a secondary platform, but in 2018, it moved clients from Bravura to FNZ One in order to improve the offering.

The migration was fraught and led to a series of glitches, but post-migration Aviva has been battling to grow its platform usage and win back favour among advisers.

“One of the things we had a conversation with Succession about was whether they’d looked at the Aviva platform. They said they hadn’t done a platform review for a while,” Ward explained.

“The previous one was a few years back when we were going through a migration. So they did another review and said ‘yeah, actually we’re going to add Aviva to the panel’.”

Ward said while the adviser and platform businesses will remain separate, the provider does remain in regular dialogue with Succession advisers on what platform developments they want to see.

Alternative to adviser-as-platform model

A growing trend in the platform space has been the ‘adviser-as-platform’ model.

Firms such as Seccl, headed up by Nucleus founder David Ferguson, as well as Hubwise, Just FA, Third Financial, Platform One and Multrees all offer variations on this model.

The one common theme is giving the adviser more agency over the platform - whether that’s how it runs, looks, costs, or integrates with other services.

There is more noise around adviser-as-a-platform than there is demand in the market.Al Ward, Aviva

At the end of last year, Nucleus announced it was looking at giving IFAs more control.

“Technology change is a good thing. The market has got to grow, evolve and change,” said Ward.

“But there is more noise around adviser-as-a-platform than there is demand in the market. When we speak to firms, some of them are considering it. 

“What advisers want is a voice at the table in terms of what the developments are. And they also want great service. Some of them are frustrated that they don’t get some of that.”

In Ward’s opinion, if a platform can communicate well with its advisers and deliver good service, the adviser-as-platform conversation “goes away”.

Price is secondary to this, said Ward, who said while the upfront cost of adviser-as-platform might be cheaper, it will likely be more overall to run for the average advice business. 

“There is a cohort of businesses where it is the right thing to do because they have bespoke needs, for example they might be managing ultra-high-net-worth clients. But that’s only a small proportion of the market,” said Ward.

Hiring not just based on experience

One of the main components Ward has credited for Aviva’s platform service is its distribution, operations and support teams.

Like many platform operators in the UK, Aviva found itself scrambling for talent during the pandemic as firms vied to hire more staff in order to manage strained service levels.

Aviva simply decided to stop looking for candidates with experience, seeing as they were the most sought after in the market - particularly when many favoured working from home versus commuting to Aviva’s York office.

“The operations team did a great job at changing the recruitment policy,” said Ward. 

“All the job applications said people had to have experience, but that meant all candidates would have to come from other platform businesses. We took that out and started looking for the right people.”

Aviva began inviting candidates into the office, partially in an effort to persuade those put off by Aviva’s huge corporate brand.

“Inviting people in for open days was really helpful. It was nothing material, but we changed the focus.”

Platforms will need to look closer at foreseeable harm

As the April deadline for the Financial Conduct Authority’s consumer duty fast-approaches, providers - much like advisers - have a lot to keep in mind.

One thing Ward reckons will be a big theme for platforms following its implementation is due diligence. 

Last year, FTAdviser found Embark had the highest uphold rate of any adviser platform with the Financial Ombudsman, with the most resolved complaints relating to self-invested personal pension due diligence, provider due diligence, or 'administration or customer service'. 

Experts have said it is likely the Fos will “set a precedent” to define what avoiding foreseeable harm - a requirement of the consumer duty- actually means with example cases.

“If you’re looking at foreseeable harm, you should be looking at where that money could end up and what that could mean for the end customer,” said Ward.

“Everyone’s got a responsibility to look at that, platforms included. I don’t see how you can answer the cross-cutting rule without looking across the services they offer and seeing where those investments end up.”

Due diligence includes looking at outliers and charging, Ward explained. “It’s definitely an area that will get more focus, particularly around the value as well. As a platform, we’ll have to look across all of it.”

Aviva already has ‘decency limits’ in place, which sees it flag excessive charging by advice firms or investment solutions.

ruby.hinchliffe@ft.com