In this 12-page paper we take a look at ASI’s updated MyFolio Lookthrough Tool. That’s presumably not a galloping surprise given the title.
ASI has put this out at an interesting time. Taken in the round, the FCA’s studies into the asset management and investment platform markets, along with advisers’ new responsibilities under PROD and disclosure under MiFID II, mean that the suitability of centralised investment propositions on platforms is an area that we need to spend some time thinking about as an industry.
When we look at this space, we see a couple of immediately obvious areas of concern
- Client reporting remains really awful on far too many platforms, which makes advisers’ lives harder in terms of demonstrating suitability;
- We find a sort of reflexive prejudice against multi-asset fund investing from lots of advisers, based on the ‘single line of stock’ problem. This leads firms to create more complex model portfolio structures, which might well be suitable, but which will each require 5 km2 of virgin Amazonian rainforest for the paper on which the disclosures will be printed.
The two are, of course, linked. And so when ASI puts out a piece of kit that aims to help advisers improve client reporting and demonstrate what’s going on inside their own multi-asset range, we think it’s worth a look. So the paper covers not only the new tool (which isnât the finished article yet, but has lots of things to like) but also some thoughts on these issues and what the sector needs to do about them.
The paper is free to download. As ever we believe in full disclosure: ASI paid us to produce it, but we don’t say anything in it that we wouldn’t say if we weren’t being paid. Trust us or don’t, but it is the truth.
