How to get the most out of... Ascentric

In the latest part of Professional Adviser's and IFAonline's series examining some of the little-known features on your favourite platforms, we look under the bonnet of Ascentric...

Historic valuations

Ascentric offers a single view of all transactions as well as instant access to updated valuations, statements and transaction records.

Historic valuations provide a snapshot of clients’ holdings on any given date selected by an adviser from either the date of transfer or purchase on the platform.
The report can be exported to Excel, PDF or Word.

Fund Research Centre

Through the fund research centre Ascentric users can access all their fund research and fund related material in a single place, providing support to advisers analysing their investment solutions for clients.

The fund research centre comprises a series of bespoke tools covering funds and ETFs available on the platform as well as in the wider market.

The tools are not only highly interactive, through the provision of extensive filters and search fields, but are also integrated. This means advisers can save their portfolios within the tools and understand the holistic cost to the client of their investment decisions.

Client Portfolio Report

The outcome of these investment decisions can be found in the client portfolio report which harnesses the data available on the platform and converts it into a client-friendly personalised report.

This report includes a detailed breakdown of all investment holdings in a client’s portfolio. It also provides an analysis of the performance of each product wrapper, the top ten holdings in each asset allocation and an overall summary page.

Tailored

The wrap offers a bespoke branding capability allowing advisers to offer clients an end to end service between their website and the platform. Through this service, all web pages and client reports are branded with the adviser’s logo and corporate identity. Any statements or valuations sent directly to clients can also be adviser branded.

This service also gives advisers access to a wide range of promotional literature, including posters, leaflets, brochures, newsletters, flyers and corporate stationery online that advisers can adapt quickly and easily to their brand. Literature items can be converted to pdf for sign off.

Choice and Flexibility

The platform offers access to over 3,000 funds plus a range of structured products and securities.

As a member of the London Stock Exchange, Ascentric also offer access to a universe of 30,000 LSE-listed securities including ETFs, investment trusts, venture capital trusts, bonds, gilts as well as a wide range of cash options.

There are more than 50 products available providing onshore bonds, offshore bonds, SIPPs, SSASs and QROPS. These sit alongside Ascentric’s in-house ISA, General Investment Account and Ascentric Pension Account wrappers.

Ascentric is also the only platform to offer access to HSBC’s open architecture Maximum Investment Plan and Onshore Investment Bond as well as Sanlam’s Transfer Pension Portfolio Section 32.

The investment solutions above allow for stock picking to multi-manager, fund of funds or bespoke models.

And another thing …

Ascentric provides a pricing structure where clients are only charged for the services provided. There are no set-up costs and the platform charges can be applied to combined portfolio holding values, making it particularly appealing to family groups.

The Royal London-owned wrap launched in January 2007. It describes itself as a fully integrated stockbroker, fund supermarket and cash management system designed to support adviser businesses. It was developed using Microsoft .NET to ensure the seamless incorporation of external support services.

The wrap has £3.3bn AUA, as at 30 June 2011, and around 620 firms are currently signed up.