AXA says the growth in assets makes Elevate one of the fastest growing platforms in the UK market and says the platform has continued to grow throughout 2012 attracting an increasing amount of interest from advisers.
Meanwhile, Ascentric says its platform and its institutional arm IFDL have seen assets on the platform pass £5 billion, an increase of 36 per cent since the start of 2012. Hugo Thorman, managing director at Ascentric and IFDL said, "This is a great announcement for the business. Set against a difficult economic and regulatory backdrop, the business continues to thrive driven by a strong performance from our institutional business IFDL that includes Succession Advisory Services, Towergate Financial, Openwork, Intrinsic and Platform One."
AXA Elevate was launched to the whole market in November 2008 as a stand-alone business, outside of the AXA life and pensions company, before it was fully integrated into the AXA Wealth business in Q1 2010. Assets under management have grown from £320mn in Q1 2010 to £3.5bn by the end of 2011 and have now reached £5bn.
Elevate has recently announced a new tiered pricing model (see below) for advisers. The new charging tiers mean those advisers with portfolios of more than £500,000 on the platform will be charged 0.28%.
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The company says that Elevate’s pricing model has been designed so that clients are always charged the lowest price they qualify for on their whole investment. For example if a client invests £100,000 they will pay a platform charge of 0.32% for the entire investment.
Paul Riddell, head of strategic communications, says: "Surpassing the £5bn mark and the already widespread support for our new charging structure with less tiers and lower charges means we are confident that 2013 will be even more successful.
“The platform market is a highly competitive one but through the investment we have made we are able to deliver a highly efficient service at a lower cost to advisers, and their clients. This will help us meet AXA Wealth's long-term ambition to be a UK platform winner.
"2013 will bring its own challenges with the implementation of the Retail Distribution Review, but having already set out the arrangements for advisers using the Elevate platform in the new post-RDR environment we believe we are well placed to continue to grow in the next twelve months."
AXA Wealth Elevate has been in the market four years, with its first funds added on 14 November 2008 by Finch Financial Services LLP, CDH Insurance & Financial Consultants, Blake Independent Financial Planning Ltd and Condy Mathias Financial Planners Ltd.
Elevate pricing tiers
| Value of Elevate portfolio |
Elevate portfolio charge |
| £500,000 - £999,999 |
0.28% |
| £100,000 - £499,999 |
0.32% |
| £25,000 - £99,999 |
0.34% |
| £0 - £24,999 |
0.40% |