Building an independent institutional platform solution for the UK pension market

Working from the dining room over the past few months provides a great opportunity for reflection. Just six years ago Mobius Life completed its management buy-out to create a fully independent institutional pension platform. We had around £3 billion on the platform and catered for the UK’s mainstream DB and DC schemes.

When we started most of our clients had assets up to £100 million, but now schemes with hundreds of millions in assets are joining the platform as well.

So what’s changed to attract the larger schemes to our platform?

First, we have taken the time to explain our proposition to all of the UK advisory community. At the start we worked with just a handful of advisors, but now we partner with the vast majority of UK pension consultants.

They now have first-hand experience of our service through their clients and have witnessed the capabilities, additional services and funds available on the platform growing year on year. As a result they have been happy to recommend the Mobius Life platform to their larger clients.

Second, the growth in schemes appointing professional trustees has undoubtedly helped as well. Professional trustees recognise the advantages of efficiency, flexibility, execution and governance that using the platform brings and can leverage their expertise across their clients.

Third, I think it’s true to say that in our early days many scheme trustees and consultants saw the platform solution as most suitable for mainstream schemes with lower governance budgets. The reality is that the benefits span the client spectrum and the growth in larger clients utilising platform solutions is a testament to that.

Now trustees and consultants recognise that the ability to simply and efficiently administer investments on the Mobius Life platform is applicable to all schemes. We can transition assets, rebalance portfolios, improve governance and take execution risk away for schemes of all sizes.

Importantly we value all our clients and work to deliver an exceptional platform service to schemes, whether they have a few million in assets or measure their assets in hundreds of millions.