“Platforms themselves are under no regulatory requirement to offer any particular products, or to consider whether their offering is whole of the market. Since there are costs to platforms and/or to product providers in including products within their ranges, platforms’ offerings are likely, in most cases, to amount to something less than whole-of-market coverage.
“Firms must not recommend a client invest in a product through a platform if an investment off-platform would be in their best interest or if none of the investment selections available to the firm are suitable.”
It continues: “Where a firm has a diverse range of clients, it may be in the firm’s interests – as well as the clients’ best interests – to use more than one platform. The firm may want to offer different levels of service to different categories of client. Here, we set out the benefits of how clear segmentation of the client bank and effective matching of firm services and platform selection (following good due diligence). Clearly, firms must consider each client individually and ensure they handle any outlier clients appropriately.”
