BDM Dentons

Two matters are not adequately addressed here. The first is the difference between a technology based platform SIPP and one that offers investment outside of the platform. The former requires very little in terms of manual input from a human being and thus can be provided on a relatively inexpensive basis. The later requires competent and often qualified adminsitrative personnel who need to be paid for. As a result there will always be a clear gap between these two ends ofthe market. A pure non platformed based SIPP provider will always have a clear annual fee for providing the adminsitration and if it at a level of say £500pa the majority of that is actually needed to properly fund the service. The profit margins on these individual cases is not great. Conversely a platform based SIPP may claim no direct annual fee but will receive its remuneration as a percentage of the trade costs or underlying fund AMC. On reasoanble size cases, the remuneration can actually be far larger than a directly charged fee.

Posted by: Martin Tilley