The biggest challenges for advisers allocating RI products on platforms

At its RI Summit 2022 event on Wednesday, 6 April, RIAA revealed the results of “the greatest hurdle in allocating RI [responsible investment] products via a platform” as voted by advisers in a poll.

During the session of Spoilt for choice: What are the products savvy advisers are choosing?, 75 per cent of respondents said the biggest hurdle was being unsure of the RI quality.

20 per cent said they had insufficient RI knowledge, while 10 per cent said the biggest challengers were choice of RI products and client demand.

Speaking during the panel, BT’s head of ESG and sustainability Jessie Pettigrew said “the entire industry is on a bit of a journey” in regards to RI and adviser expectations.

“Investment managers have been talking about responsible investing for quite a while in very technical language. If I put my investment manager hat on, we’re very bad at explaining that in language that retail investors understand,” Ms Pettigrew said.

“And so, I feel like poor advisers get a client walking in the door saying ‘I’m really interested in sustainable investing’ and then they get this homogonous list from us that has a bunch of investments in it. So, I think it’s really helping advisers understand what that means… how do you help unpack that?

“It might be that they want their whole portfolio invested ethically… it’s really variable. We see completely different approaches,” she added.

Neil Griffiths

Neil is the Deputy Editor of the wealth titles, including ifa and InvestorDaily.

Neil is also the host of the ifa show podcast.