There’s no excuse any more; we’ve all been back at it for at least a week or so and the fug should be dissipating.

As we ease into the year, then, it seems like the right time to let you know what’s going on in the world of Platform Analyser.

We have one big development to tell you about; there'll be some smaller ones too, but all are cool and we hope they will make your lives as the fiduciary guardians of your clients’ wealth just a little bit easier.

Before we dive in, a word on what you get as a premium Analyser subscriber versus what you get as a free subscriber.

Free subscribers get access to our Platform Directory - a free searchable catalogue of the features and capabilities the UK adviser platform market has to offer.

That lets you analyse one platform at a time, and contains about two-thirds of the data we hold on each.

You also get a bunch of great content from the lang cat, other advisers and folk who have interesting things to say – but you won’t get much of our detailed analysis, data or insight.

We are committed to providing a forever free tier, but as Analyser develops this will naturally appear more limited next to its big sister.

Premium subscribers get full access to the Platform Analyser due diligence system, including the UK’s most advanced pricing comparison engine.

On top of everything the free tier offers, you’ll be able to do all manner of wonderful things. These include:

• A proven online guided deep-dive due diligence process to create bespoke due diligence reports setting out the rationale behind your chosen platforms, with a built-in audit trail to boot.
• The ability to run one-off interactive pricing and features comparisons between platforms, based on specific must-haves or great-to-haves… all done in seconds.
• A free copy of the lang cat’s famous annual platform guide, State of the Platform Nation
• Ad hoc research to help you keep up with the key issues of the day.
• The very best and most detailed analysis that we have to offer including a quarterly Adviser Briefing with AUA, service ratings, new developments and more.
• New functionality added all the time, based on user feedback.

All for the modest sum of £300 a year, or £25 a month (plus the VAT).

We mention this because... well, because we want you to be a premium subscriber if you’re not, and if you are to keep being one.

We don’t sell listings, or silly little ratings, or anything else that might slant what’s in Analyser.

No provider pays to be on Analyser, which is one of the reasons our market coverage is the best in the business. We depend on firms like you paying £300pa for access, and everything we do with it is about delivering more and more for that £300.

PLATFORM ANALYSER

With that, let’s turn to the year to come.

The big news is that – at a date not too far at all in the future – Platform Analyser won’t just cover platforms.

We’re going to need a new name, and that’s because we’re adding discretionary MPS propositions in as well.

This means you’ll be able to run due diligence on MPS providers using the same logic as we use to power the guided due diligence journey for platforms.

Naturally MPS ranges have different characteristics to platforms, so there’s some different stuff in there, but the key point of ensuring properly evidenced suitability for your target market remains.

We’ll launch with eight providers to start with; these represent something like 85% of the market AUA and flow for discretionary MPS.

We’ve worked with these firms – none of whom have paid for access – and a long-suffering and very generous group of advisers and paraplanners for months to create this new section on Analyser, and we think it’s going to be a game-changer.

We aren’t looking to take on the investment analytics houses; we can’t do what they do in terms of in-depth research on a given portfolio.

But what we can do is give you a tool that will let you get to a shortlist of propositions that are suitable in a robust, defensible and properly evidenced way that cuts through the crap and just gives you the data.

Once we’re up and going we’ll throw open the doors to the dozens of other MPS providers out there and create what we hope will be the most usable data source in the UK.

Free users will get: a new free MPS Directory next to the Platform Directory. This will have usable data in it, but will only allow you to look at one MPS range at a time, much like the platform side.

Premium users will get: a completely new section in Analyser that will allow you to run MPS due diligence exercises and comparisons – including performance and cost – in no time at all.

There will be online training, lots of new content and analysis, and the ability to run both sets of propositions next to each other for target client segments. The interactive charting is still being built but is, if you’ll forgive, the cat’s pyjamas.

Importantly, there will be no price increase for this.

We’re delivering something roughly the size of Platform Analyser, on top of Platform Analyser, for the price of Platform Analyser. That’s what we mean when we bang on about your £300 getting you the best of what the lang cat has to offer.

We’ll update you in the weeks to come with a launch date.

WHAT ELSE?

MPS Analyser (working title…) is taking most of our energy at the moment, but we have a few other big ticket and day-to-day developments planned in as well, so watch this space on that front.

On top of all this we will continue to deliver the annual Guide, the quarterly Adviser Briefing and in-depth analysis on propositions, regulation, research and more, but as we grow we have the capacity to deliver more and more.

You’ll see a real step-up in the frequency and detail of the content we provide for premium subscribers (and we won’t forget about the free tier!).

We continue to offer a free seven-day trial (details here) so you can get the hang of what we do and whether it’s right for you. We also offer monthly webinar demos, and free online training for new subscribers.

So there we have it. Lots done, lots left to do. We hope very much that you’ll stay with us along the way, and that you’ll consider becoming a premium subscriber if you’re not already.

Here’s to a great 2022

the lang cat