Cofunds adds two offshore bonds to wrapper in wealth management drive

Cofunds has continued its efforts to transform from a transactional platform to a wealth management offering by adding a pair of offshore bonds to its wrapper selection.

The platform has announced that Canada Life International’s Portfolio Account will be available from November. The bond will support a number of payment options, including trail and initial and funded commission. Funded commission is paid out over a five-year basis and clients will not have to pay interest on it.

But Legal & General expects its own international bond to be added to the platform around the same time. The provider has only just entered the offshore market, having received approval to set up an offshore business in July after applying in March. L&G said its offshore team worked with a number of specialist IFAs to produce the bond.

A spokesman for L&G said: ‘The two bonds will be very different. CLI is a link to the platform, whereas ours will be fully integrated into the platform and will be the core international bond on Cofunds. We will be adding the bond, hopefully in November, but certainly by the end of the year.’

The move to add offshore wrappers is part of Cofunds drive to develop a wealth management offering.

Anthony Wolfe, Cofunds’s strategic development manager, said: ‘We are moving towards a financial planning model and enabling users to give holistic financial advice. The offshore bond has a legitimate role in financial planning and something that our users said that they wanted when we conducted research. We will be adding the L&G bond as well to give advisers more choice.’

Both CLI and L&G already have links to Cofunds. The former uses the platform for fund dealing and trading administration and the latter holds a 25% stake in the company and already has a range of wrappers on the platform. CLI and Cofunds are planning on working together again next year to offer advisers a discretionary gift trust on the platform.