Platforms will need to have at least £40 billion of assets under management (AUM) to break even as margins decline, according to Deloitte.
Deloitte research report says that that increased competition and reduced margins will force investment platforms to consolidate.
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Deloitte said the post-RDR environment – dominated by clean share classes, an end to commission and visible terms between fund groups and platforms – would all hit platform margins.
Andrew Power, lead RDR partner at Deloitte, said: "The value of assets held on platforms is estimated to grow from about £200 billion today to £600 billion by 2018. This growth will be driven by continued demand from advisers who see platforms as an essential part of their RDR-compliant, fee-based business models.
"However, one consequence of the RDR is that margins will be squeezed with revenues for platforms likely to fall from about 30bps to 20bps. For a platform provider, this could increase the breakeven point from around £20 billion of assets to about £40 billion.
"The result will be that the intermediary platform market will consolidate to fewer than 10 large providers and a few specialists compared to about 30 platforms today," Power added.
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By GlobalDataCurrently Cofunds, Skandia and FundsNetwork all have in excess of £40 billion assets.
A number of other platforms have reached profitability with considerably lower levels of assets including Transact, Novia, Nucleus and Ascentric.
