Introduction
Dear Adviser,
As I approach retirement as Chief Executive Officer (CEO), I would like to thank you for your support (and constructive challenge!) during my tenure. I joined the Transact team in 2011 when the platform held £10bn of your clients’ investments. After 14 years, and still the UK’s leading platform, we hold over £65bn of Funds Under Direction. It has been a privilege to work closely with, and get to know, so many of you; helping our mutual clients with their wealth management needs. I will hand over the role as CEO of IFAL, the provider of Transact, to the very capable Tom Dunbar who will assume responsibility from 1 March. This has been a carefully orchestrated succession plan and Tom is already known to many of you. The Gunby family continue to be IHP shareholders, and I will be available to provide on-going support to the business.
Tom plans to continue with our current strategy focusing on personal service, digitalisation and integrations. We continue to hire more specialists who can help you with complex, technical cases as we know how important it is to get service right. In respect of digitalisations, we are moving bond applications online (as per pensions, ISAs and general investment accounts), along with a digital process for taking tax-free cash from pensions. Integrations through Application Programme Interfaces (API’s) remain a top priority. We plan to implement deeper integrations with back-office systems and client portals which would allow us to take data from back-offices to pre-populate Transact’s application forms.
Tom will be supported by Andrew Cullen-Jones, our newly appointed Chief Development Officer. Andrew has a wealth of experience of working with adviser firms as well as running advice policy, adviser technical support and advice technology. He is also a qualified actuary.
Otherwise, business continues as usual as we prepare for a busy tax year end in April. We are getting ready in Client Operations with two recent cohorts of new recruits, to strengthen our client service teams who now, on average, have over four years of experience with Transact. Our tax year end deadlines are described in this TYE Guide, to help you and your clients work towards important submission dates. February’s release of TOL also includes a tax year end checklist.
In our next TOL release we plan to include our Cash ISA integration with Equisoft which will speed up transfer times by automating many transfer processes. We are also excited to share version one of submitting requests to access full crystallisation of pension benefits online.
Another area of development is our approach to bulk transfers. We can now offer you additional support in the form of our Bespoke Transfer Arrangement Service which aims to ease the process of advising suitable clients to transfer their investments from one platform to another. This is aimed to improve transfer turnaround times and provide better outcomes for your clients. More detail on this new service is provided here and in the article below, but in summary we can help you with the production of illustrations, completion of applications, client consent and arranging bespoke engagement and follow ups with any ceding schemes. Your ASM or BDM is, of course, also able to help.
The start of the year also signals the start of industry surveys. The annual Investment Trends adviser technology and business survey is currently underway, and you can take part here. The survey is now called the Adviser Technology and Pension Survey as the previous technology and pensions surveys have been combined into one. In appreciation of your time, completion of the survey allows you to entre a prize draw to win one of three £1,000 Amazon vouchers.
The Platforum UK Adviser Platforms survey is also currently open. The survey invites you to comment on the platforms you use and is the basis of a market overview and quarterly User Leaderboard. This is an important rolling quarterly indicator of our performance verses our peers, and we would appreciate if you could please take part. Completion means you will be eligible to enter a prize draw to win one of four £50 Amazon vouchers*
We continue to focus on the Budget implications for wealth planning and what you need to consider. Our technical articles focus on gifting using Discounted Gift Trusts and Transitional Tax-Free Certificates and planning with scheme-specific protection. We would encourage you to read them and to make the most of the technical support available to you. This month’s articles include:
- A Study of Gifting: Discounted Gift Trusts in article 6.
- Transitional Tax-Free Certificates (and if your clients really need one) in article 7.
- Tax-free Cash Planning with Scheme Specific Tax-Free Cash Protection article 8.
Please call our direct technical line if you want to discuss any of these articles in more detail on (020) 7608 5330 or email technical_direct@integrafin.co.uk.
To learn more about Transact, we are running an online Connect event on 26 February. In this online event, open to all advisory professionals, you will hear from me, Tom Dunbar, Andrew Cullen-Jones, and Brian Radbone (Technical Counsel). To register please click here. If you prefer to meet in person, please join us at a breakfast or Connect event near you. The first in-person Connect will take place on 7 May in Birmingham. A full list of events and joining instructions can be found here.
Finally, from me as I sign off on Adviser Update for the final time, thank you and I wish you all the very best for the future.
Kind regards,
Jonathan Gunby
Chief Executive Officer,
Integrated Financial Arrangements Limited (Transact)
1. Introduction
2. TOL Recent Enhancements
3. Transact & MoneyInfo Webinar
4. Bespoke Transfer Arrangement
5. Transact-BlackRock MPS
6. A Study of Gifting: Discounted Gift Trusts
7. Transitional Tax-Free Certificates – Do clients Really Need One
8. Tax-Free Cash Planning with Scheme Specific Tax – Free Cash Protection
11. Interest On Cash
12. Transact Events 2025