Major admin provider FNZ to enter wealth management market

FNZ, the biggest provider of technology and investment administration to financial advisers, is set to enter the wealth management market.

The company is to compete with administration providers such as Pershing and Adam & Co – adding further competition to the market, which is expecting a number of new entrants in coming months.

FNZ’s largest contracts already see it power the Standard Life and Axa Elevate wraps and most recently it struck a deal with Friends Provident to launch a corporate wrap for the UK market.

However, the company is now branching out into the wealth management space, looking to offer services such as admin management of model portfolios, auto-rebalancing and sophisticated client reporting.

Hugh Evans, head of business development at FNZ, said: ‘We believe there is an opportunity to leverage off our experience of powering platforms to service wealth managers. We are taking something that we have got and pointing it at a different market segment.

‘We are targeting wealth management firms that look to benefit from outsourcing arrangements. Our sweet spot is companies that have anywhere from upwards of £100 million to low tens of billions. In some sense we have proven capability already.’

Evans believes FNZ’s experience of quickly moving large swathes of clients onto a platform will prove attractive to wealth management firms looking for speed and efficacy from their service.

He added: ‘As new entrants into this sub-segment, we are extremely flexible and proactive in working with people. On cost, we think that commercially we can offer something that’s exceptionally compelling versus the traditional people in the outsourcing space.’

The arrival of the retail distribution review will also affect the wealth management space and make outsourcing attractive, Evans said.