Under the arrangement, clients of advisory firms which make use of Capital’s platform services will be able to link with and trade Royal London’s PIMS Portfolio Bonds.
Royal London 360°’s international sales director Simon Pack said that a client who linked his or her PIMS bond to Capital Platforms would still receive “all of the benefits of a portfolio bond, but with seamless integration to Capital Platforms online trading platform, for which we have seen increased adviser demand”.
As outlined by Capital and RL360°, the new tie-up means PIMS policyholders may, via the platform, access more than 5,000 mutual funds from 200 asset management houses, in addition to a range of structured products.
“Clients will benefit from online access, portfolio monitoring, reporting tools and stop/loss facilities, while advisers will be able to pro-actively manage their client accounts,” Peter Williams, director of Capital Platforms, said.
As reported, Williams and his business partner, Justin Barrett, launched Capital Platforms earlier this year, after almost nine years running Boston Direct Management, another Singapore-based platform provider which they also founded, along with two other partners who are no longer involved in the business.
Based in the Isle of Man, Royal London 360° is the offshore life insurance arm of the Royal London Group. Under the direction of chief executive David Kneeshaw, it has been among the most “pro-platform” of the UK life companies, and this is not just because its parent has a majority ownership in the UK-focused Ascentric platform.
Platforms, Kneeshaw believes, are the future for the industry, particularly as the Retail Distribution Review regulations, which force financial advisers to become more transparent about costs, begin to take effect in the UK in January.
Already, Kneeshaw told International Adviser earlier this year, as much as 40% of the company’s new offshore bond business in the UK is coming through the platforms RL360° has established relationships with.
“Offshore it is still very much smaller, probably less than 10%, but we anticipate it will grow,” he added.
