Finance Monthly April 2020 Edition

What do you think is the attraction of wrap platforms? An investment platform should enable your business to focus on its core competence, whether that’s financial planning and advice, or investment management, or delivering a great user experience for your digital investment service. The investment platform should handle everything else ‘behind the curtain’ to ensure your business (a) functions efficiently and can scale at low cost; (b) can quickly adapt in line with strategic business decisions or the evolving market environment; and (c) most critically, remains on the right side of the regulator. Tell us more about the Hubwise investment platform. What makes it better than other investment platforms? Several members of my executive team originally worked with me almost 20 years ago to build and run one of the earliest investment platforms available in the UK. That business, originally known as OMX Securities, was hugely successful, growing rapidly to administer around £20billion of client assets. But with the core platform being wholly reliant on a third-party technology solution, and with an operational headcount in the several hundred, I eventually decided to sell the platform business. That business is still running and is now called Platform Securities, owned by the US group FIS. I learned one important lesson from that chapter of my career: you need to own and control the core technology. Only then can you build a platform fit-for-purpose, without inefficiencies, compromises and functionality gaps, and when combined with the team’s deep understanding of the securities market structure, creates a real opportunity to do things differently, to see things differently. That’s why I started Hubwise. We are using our own modern technology to solve the common investment challenges faced across the retail investment market and to deliver investment capabilities which are usually the preserve of institutional asset managers. It’s a process of continuous innovation and capital reinvestment, and it’s entirely under our control. Why should more investment firms consider using a platform like Hubwise? It’s about bucking the trend. For many years, most IFA firms have traditionally adopted a multi- platform strategy, often using up to 12 different platforms to service their client book – this was simply because pricing and products were so diverse, and there was no single platform solution that was deemed appropriate. That is until now – with Hubwise’s competitive and capped pricing, and ‘whole-of-market’ and independent investment proposition, more and more regulated investment businesses are consolidating their multiple platform relationships into a single primary platform (with Hubwise), with small specialised solutions for the very exotic client requirement. Recent examples of IFA firms consolidating their client books from multiple platforms onto Hubwise include Fidelius with its Advance Platform, Clifton Asset Management with its Viewpoint Platform, The Private Office with its TPO Invest Platform and Frenkel Topping with its LUCI Platform. All these firms are high-growth investment businesses, each with client books in the £1billion AUA A wrap platform (or investment platform) enables a user with online access to a broad range of tradeable securities and investment wrappers (such as a GIA, ISA or SIPP), combined with the provision of various trade execution, custody and client money safeguarding services. INVESTMENT - WRAP PLATFORMS 53 www.finance-monthly.com