Adrian Grace, chief executive of Cofounds owner Aegon, says improving the Cofunds’ “user experience” to follow the success of companies such as Amazon is a key aim.

Talking as Aegon announced record platform growth with assets up by £7bn in 2016 in its fourth quarter figures, he said that underinvestment in the past had left Cofunds’ user experience trailing behind, something
he pledged to rectify.

He said there was a new roadmap for Aegon / Cofunds integration and this would be outlined in March at the next Advisory board meeting.

He said: “There’s a lot of momentum behind the Cofunds deal which completed on 1 January. We’ve already had productive discussions with users of both Cofunds’ and Aegon’s platforms via our Advisory Board and recently launched an Adviser Panel to gather feedback from a wider group. It’s encouraging that our plans to combine the best of Aegon and Cofunds have been well received.

“At the next Advisory Board meeting in March we’ll outline a roadmap detailing further information on timings for our technology upgrade approach. This will focus on extending functionality to both sets of users through an enhanced version of the Aegon platform which is under development. Cofunds users will benefit from a reduction in paper and an integrated pension, for example, while Aegon users will benefit from features like pre-funding and debit card transactions.

Mr Grace added that the investment in Cofunds came against a backdrop of great challenges for the platform sector as a whole.

He said: “In recent years the pace of regulatory change for platforms has been relentless. They’ve had to contend with the Retail Distribution Review and pension freedoms in particular and as a result investment has focused to a large extent on remaining compliant and just keeping up with the changes.

“This has meant underinvestment in user experience across the board and if we look outside our industry, we see the businesses that are successful are those that make life as easy as possible for their customers. Amazon is a prime example of a business that has been successful largely because it’s so intuitive and understands its customers. The next big challenge for our industry is to invest in the user experience while continuing to keep pace with regulation, which will no doubt continue to evolve.”

Aegon reported quarterly earnings of £18.6 million and platform assets hit £13.4 billion following net inflows of £1.9 billion. Protection sales grew by 11%.

Mr Grace commented: “2016 was a game changing year for Aegon and by selling our annuity book and acquiring both Cofunds and BlackRock’s DC platform, the business has a very clear focus. A combination of factors including the pension freedoms, investment uncertainty and an increased demand for advice on transfers from defined benefit schemes is creating strong demand for financial advice. Against this backdrop our goal is to help advisers and other intermediaries meet this demand by offering the best tools and service and by not competing for distribution, we believe we’ll be successful.”

Express Gifts Ltd, a mail order and online business with permission to sell general insurance, has agreed a deal with the Financial Conduct Authority to provide £12.5m redress to approximately 330,000 customers who were sold insurance that offered “little or no value.”

The Association of British Insurers has today called for the tax relief crackdown on pension freedom users to be put on hold, adding its weight to the growing opposition to the MPAA changes.

Ascot Lloyd, the Financial Planning and wealth management firm, has recruited a former head of Paraplanning to a senior new role as head of advice where she will lead a strategic review of the company’s advice process.

A pensions campaign group has criticised the government’s “ongoing inaction” and branded the Pension Regulator as “utterly ineffective” in its response to UK government consultation on pension scams.

The Personal Finance Society has backed calls for the Government to remove the term ‘advice’ from all branding, marketing and communications associated with the formation of its new single public financial guidance body which will replace the Money Advice Service.

Unbiased has begun scoring advisers on how quickly they reply.

An executive director at The Pensions Regulator has called for pension transfers to SSAS to be banned.

Leading firms in the platform and pension sectors are urging Ministers to scrap changes to the money purchase annual allowance.

The new Bankhall Business Bureau has teamed up with Financial Planning business coach Michelle Hoskin, known as Little Miss Woww.