Costs of moving off platform

Colonial First State recently commissioned research which apparently highlighted the costs of advisers moving their clients off platforms. I say apparently because, whilst CFS was keen to publish the conclusion that it was vastly more expensive (it appeared in both Money Management and Financial Standard), they weren't so keen on publishing the report itself (I couldn't find it).

Whenever I read an article about 'research' supporting a finding that suits the interests of the person who paid for it I assume that it is blatantly self-serving rubbish until proven otherwise. Nothing in the articles dissuaded me from this assumption.

In fact, the Financial Standard article was revealing in that it highlighted an alternative view (that there is no major increase in cost) and the fact the research was based on a massive sample size of two. So the 'research' might equally have been called 'A case study of two practices who weren't much good at admin' or 'A half baked sales pitch supporting the financial interests of platform providers'.

What the articles don't talk about is the real cost of platforms - restriction on choice and steering to particular investments. I've got nothing against platforms per se. Centralised administration is a fantastic concept but (as highlighted by my last blog post) I do have a problem with them being used to create captive fee generating clients. Institutions have paid big bucks to build their platforms and to buy in the 'distribution pipe' of financial planners necessary to extract fees from the captive client base. I suspect this won't be the last 'research' we see telling everyone how necessary they both are.

As the CFS research was built on the not-exactly-large sample size of two it would be interesting to hear from the financial advisers amongst the membership as to what their experiences are with off platform or alternative platforms. I am personally in the process of making the switch to a super administrator which, I hope, will largely eliminate my admin burden (although we will wait and see).

Is the CFS research the complete rubbish it appears at face value to be? Is it just the amount of the increase (four fold) which is a bit far fetched? Or should we all just be thankful that CFS is willing to provide such a cost-effective service?