Cox said platforms had improved communication and added: “Moving back to direct purchases would be a significantly retrograde step.
“The financial services industry doesn’t have the greatest history of keeping their investors informed. Intermediation through platforms has substantially improved the levels of information, transparency and research available to the investor and technology has made this possible.”
A spokesperson for AJ Bell also disagreed with the report and said that platforms were “not the real issue”.
They said: “We would support the suggestion in the AREF report that investors would be better served by having a range of different fund structures, enabling them to invest in property funds without daily trading if they choose to do so.
“Having that choice might also help the understanding of what daily liquidity means and the fact that those funds might suspend if they cannot meet redemption requests.”
Victoria Hasler, head of research at Square Mile, also disputed the suggestion platforms added to the problems in the days after the UK voted for Brexit.
The most common problem then was not retail investors moving money around on platforms, but discretionary and fund of fund managers not wanting to be “the last one left” as the industry suspected withdrawals would follow the Brexit result.
