Come and have a go: The (late) summer special

In the last 12 months the platform market has seen some significant movement, with takeovers (Interactive Investor buying Trustnet Direct), exits (goodbye rplan) and the explosion in robo advice services.

To keep a handle on all things platform, the ever insightful folk at the lang cat have issued their latest update – the ingeniously titled late summer special that is “Come and have a go” – which, among other things, gives some clever insight into the outlook for the market from here.

The conclusion is that a shakeup could well be coming for platforms sooner rather than later, with the FCA’s Interim Report on its Investment Platforms Market Study highlighting some issues which it may move to tackle next year when the final report comes out.

Interestingly, the lang cat also notes how more and more relevant info is being made available (thanks to regulation) to make it easier for fair comparisons between platforms to be made, while it gives an increasingly relevant nod to the explosion in financial apps which are gathering column inches (although not much by way of assets as yet).

To read the full (and quite terrifyingly animated) version of this cracking report, which the lang cat does not charge for, click here.