AJ Bell continued to attract thousands of new customers in its third financial quarter, with 25,000 clients joining the platform in the three months to the end of April, according to its most recent results.
It now serves 528,000 customers in total, representing a 13% increase over the past year and 5% over the quarter.
With them came a £3.4bn leap in assets under administration (AUA) over the period, bringing the total up to £83.7bn. This is a fifth higher (20%) than the £69.8bn it held in AUA last year.
Most of the firm’s new clients are direct to consumer (D2C) customers, which rose 7% over the quarter (and 17% in the past year) to 360,000.
Its advised customers on the other hand, rose a milder 2% in the third quarter and 7% over the past year, bringing the total to 168,000.
The investment platform is clearly appealing more to D2C customers, who are gaining a more dominant share of its client base. CEO Michael Summersgill accredits this to strong equity market performance.
“Recent stockmarket performance has boosted confidence amongst D2C customers, resulting in higher levels of dealing activity in recent months, with international dealing activity being particularly strong,” he said.
“Our ongoing investment in our brand and products, including recent price reductions, has fuelled customer growth with the organic increase in D2C customers in Q3 being more than double the level achieved in the prior year.”
See also: AJ Bell platform assets hit £80bn as it reaches half million customer milestone
But despite a significant rise in customers and AUA over the past year, Summersgill said investors are still missing out on a lot of untapped potential.
He pointed to recent HMRC figures which revealed that 3 million people in the UK are holding at least £20,000 in their cash ISA with nothing invested in stocks and shares. Those savings have likely lost purchasing power amid soaring inflation, which could have been avoided were they invested in rising equity markets.
Summersgill said: “AJ Bell’s purpose is to help people invest. However, many people are put off investing due to a lack of confidence, not helped by the complexity of the UK investments market.
“We are actively engaging with the newly-elected government on their pledge to support greater retail participation in capital markets and increase the number of people using stocks and shares ISAs. Having long campaigned for simplification of the ISA system, we have this week put forward proposals to the new Treasury team in which we call for a move to a single ISA wrapper for cash and investments, making it easier for savers to start investing.”
In addition to making ISAs more approachable for investors, AJ Bell hopes ongoing equity market gains will continue to attract new customers to its platform over the upcoming fourth quarter.
“We enter the final quarter of our financial year with strong momentum,” Summersgill added. “Our dual-channel strategy and continued investment into our brand, technology and products puts us in an excellent position to capture further market share gains in both the advised and D2C platform markets.”
See also: AJ Bell calls on chancellor to introduce ‘One Isa’ product
