Quilter has launched a new Cash Hub savings service for platform customers.
The Cash Hub, powered by Bondsmith, will provide access to a wide range of banks and savings accounts offering competitive interest rates.
These include easy access, notice period and fixed-term options.
The complementary Cash Hub service will also allow advisers to see their clients’ cash savings alongside their Quilter platform investments.
The launch of the Cash Hub follows several recent platform upgrades.
These include the introduction of Quilter’s App Hub, adviser co-branding, an increased online withdrawal limit and new features to enhance the support provided to potentially vulnerable customers.
The new Cash Hub will provide a home for customers’ cash savings, such as emergency funds or savings they are looking to grow for a specific goal.
Quilter said it is “particularly well suited to those customers looking to move their existing off-platform cash savings to a service that will allow them to easily switch between cash products”.
The value of Cash Hub savings will be included within a customer’s tiered platform charge calculation and family linking feature.
This means that as well as there being no platform charge on these savings, the value could help to lower customers’ overall platform fee.
Financial advisers will benefit from their clients’ Cash Hub savings being listed clearly alongside other platform investments in reporting and valuations.
Quliter said this will allow for a “more accurate view of a client’s overall wealth position during financial planning conversations”.
The adviser will be notified when correspondence is generated as a result of a new cash product application being submitted. They will also be able to track Cash Hub activity within the platform and via activity reporting.
The Cash Hub is being fully integrated into Quilter’s platform service.
Quilter chief executive officer Steven Levin said: “We think that cash is now an investable asset class, which it hasn’t really been in the UK until recently.
“Even though I think inflation and cash rates are going to come down, we’re still going to stay at a positive level – they’re not going to go to normal.
“Clients now think of cash as an asset class they want to hold. They want to hold 32-day notice deposits, six-month fixed deposits, 12-month fixed deposits, so we’ve added that to our platform.
“The idea is that it’s designed for advisers to use with their clients, so the advisor has visibility of the assets.”
Levin said the Cash Hub is tightly integrated and is therefore easy to use on both mobile and the web.
He added: “Clients can get a great rate, they can decide how they want to invest, make good use of the FSCS £85,000 protections and pick from a portfolio of different banks.
“In the same way that our platform is easy to hold funds, this cash platform is very easy to hold cash.
“But it will also allow the advisers to see how much cash the clients have actually got.
“If they’ve got a lot of cash, they can start having proper financial planning conversations with them.
“There are lots of these cash marketplaces, but actually building one that is designed and integrated tightly into a platform and allowing advisers to use it as part of their process and proposition is something we are really excited about.”
He said the feedback Quilter has had from advisers so far had been “incredibly positive”.
Quilter commercial proposition director Jenny Davidson said conversations with advisers and customers “identified a need to be able to manage cash alongside other platform investments”.
She added: “The introduction of the Cash Hub strengthens Quilter’s cash offering.
“The addition results in a comprehensive range of options that also includes money market funds for use within investment portfolios, as well as cash within the platform products and services used for paying fees and charges.”
“The addition of the Cash Hub marks the next step in Quilter’s ongoing roadmap of platform improvements, and we remain committed to further enhancing the user experience for both advisers and their clients.”
