LV has launched a new investment platform for advisers in partnership with Embark.
The platform service option, provided through a white label partnership with Embark, will be accessible through LV’s adviser portal, and will provide the full range of funds available from Embark through Sipp, Isa and general investment accounts.
Clive Bolton, managing director of protection, savings and retirement at LV, said that until now advisers have typically had to make a choice to shape a client’s investment solutions using either a provider’s ‘off-platform’ insured products alongside other selected fund options, or an ‘on-platform’ wider range of fund options which are more digitised.
“We think that this on and off-platform separation is unhelpful and that advisers should increasingly be able to efficiently access the benefits of both our insured options such as LV smoothed managed funds and also our fixed term annuities, alongside wider on-platform funds options, including modelled portfolios and discretionary fund solutions,” he said.
Customers will be able to view their investments through LV’s digital ‘My LV’ portal.
The development is part of LV’s plans to widen access to its smooth managed funds, a range of multi-asset, risk-rated funds designed for capital growth but with low volatility.
The funds invest across bonds, equities, real estate and cash, and use a smoothing mechanism that takes the average of a fund’s daily underlying price over the previous 26 weeks to produce a ‘smoothed’ fund price, aimed at reducing the impact of sudden shocks on the portfolio.
Ranila Ravi Burslem, intermediary distribution director at Embark Group said the company has invested “significantly” in making its technology available for white label partners to use their way.
“It is a resounding endorsement of our position as a trusted white label provider that LV have been able to bring their smoothed managed funds to advisers via a platform in such an integrated way.”
sally.hickey@ft.com
