Designed for financial advisers and their clients, Embark said it will focus “on those individuals with between £25k to £150k” to invest.
The open architecture platform will be accessible at 10 basis points for third party investment accounts (TPIA), although the firm said its “most critical pricing point” is the cost of the platform for retail and mass affluent clients investing through general investment accounts (GIA) and individual savings accounts (ISA), which is 15bps during the launch period.
However, clients accessing the self-invested personal pension will incur a further charge of 10bps for assets held in that wrapper.
Phil Smith, chief executive of Embark, said: “There has never been a greater need for financial advice, although in recent years access to ‘full fat’ human advice has largely become the domain of the more affluent.
“The Embark platform is set to materially disrupt the current platform market. It will enable financial advisers to address the advice gap through cutting edge, highly reliable technology.
“This ‘advice gap’ is amplified by pension freedoms. Even though an individual’s decision to access their pension savings is one of the most complex they will make, according to the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), less than a third of savers and investors are taking any professional advice.
“It largely boils down to cost. Financial advisers find it difficult to profitably service those with limited assets. Recent research indicated that 69% of advisers have turned away potential clients in the past year.”
For the tech-savvy
Embark said the platform offers access to more than 4,000 mutual funds and securities and around 3,000 exchange traded funds (ETFs). The firm said it will also soon offer a wide range of model portfolios from recognised investment managers, including Blackrock.
Joe Parkin, head of iShares UK retail and wealth at Blackrock, said: “The winners in the future will be advisers that can intelligently combine ‘human and machine’ to consistently help people achieve their long-term financial goals.
“Embark has developed a platform that does just this, bringing together technology and asset allocation models – built with efficient, low cost and transparent ETFs – to directly address the need of the modern adviser. This is a thrilling development that sets a new standard for the UK industry.”
