I find myself, on a chilly Monday evening, listening to the brilliant eighth album from The Cure while pondering the topic for this column.
Turns out that, while the aforementioned ‘Disintegration’ shows that lead singer Robert Smith is a genius, disintegration can be defined as the process of losing cohesion or strength.
Weirdly, although that process could describe the condition of certain players in the platform market (so-called and wildly delayed upgrades, regulatory intervention — some severe — all around the space and clients still not benefiting from the sector’s scale), it’s hopefully more interesting to share notes on the opposite theme: integration and the good that can flow from it.
It’s an area where competitive advantage will be born or will die depending on the path chosen
Now, integration has been a hot topic in the platform space for a long, long time, but it’s only recently that we’ve begun to see things move past ‘somewhat clunky’ in the direction of ‘extremely funky’.
Where firms such as Benchmark and True Potential blazed a bit of a trail, it will soon be possible for most adviser firms to benefit from fully integrated, end-to-end technology.
Importantly (I think), this isn’t just about what’s cool, but rather about finding entirely new levels of efficiency, improving client engagement and recycling adviser capacity so that the sector can serve more people. This must be a good thing.
Getting on board
My sense is that we’re going to see an awful lot more of this in the months and years to come, and those electing not to get on board will find themselves falling dramatically behind.
Provider denial and the messages they’re sharing around the market are hindering progress
This is not the same as the regulator-driven Retail Distribution Review or Consumer Duty (at least, not specifically). It’s an area for commercial thinking where competitive advantage will be born or will die depending on the path chosen.
Now, I don’t suggest this is simple, and it will be all too easy to make mistakes, to be sucked in by a sales pitch or to be overly open to the reassuring tones of your current technology providers.
Misinformation abounds and, since this isn’t a core area of expertise for many financial planners, I would urge proceeding with caution and seeking referrals and case studies whenever possible.
The crux of the challenge (and the source of most of the nonsense chat) is that, while much of the technology that ‘serves’ the UK’s advice market just about does the job today, it’s largely sitting on ancient foundations and is unlikely to do what you need it to do in the coming years.
A lot of the other tools in the market are also old
Modern, cloud-native types of technology are typically easy to connect and the benefits flow in real time. They use APIs (application programming interfaces) to facilitate secure connectivity and don’t rely on daily CSV (comma-separated values) file uploads and such like. Crucially, they’re built to be API first.
API bandwagon
Providers of older technology are getting on the API bandwagon, often adding all sorts of so-called middleware to just about make things hang together. For now.
The problem with this approach is that it’s hugely expensive.
Every time a change is made, it needs to be done at least twice — once in the source system and once in the middleware. At least. Which is all cost for your clients to swallow, probably forever.
In the context of a platform market that almost entirely resides on outdated technology, this is a problem. And it’s compounded when we realise that a lot of the other tools in the market are also old. This means connectivity is flaky, maybe insecure and unlikely to be efficient over time.
It’s only recently that we’ve begun to see things move past ‘somewhat clunky’ in the direction of ‘extremely funky’
Provider denial and the messages they’re sharing around the market are hindering progress. Many would do well to remember that the Financial Conduct Authority’s first conduct rule is to act with integrity.
The opportunities of end-to-end system integration are enormous and to be pursued. But tread carefully. While you’re doing that, get listening to Plainsong — at least you can enjoy some great music while you drown out the noise.
David Ferguson is CEO of Seccl
This article featured in the March 2025 edition of Money Marketing.
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