The UK subsidiary of Swedish insurance giant Skandia is to bring its MultiFund Supermarket online in a link with Assureweb which goes live in early August.
The system will give Independent Financial Advisors (IFAs)in the UK online access to over 160 funds from 20 fund management companies including Aberdeen, Gartmore, Fidelity, Henderson, Jupiter, Newton, Perpetual, Schroder and Threadneedle. Using the system, IFAs will be able to buy these funds over the Web, construct portfolios, switch cheaply between funds and get online fund values.
The Assureweb link-up, developed in conjunction with Parsec, is described as the first stage in Skandia's move to bring its MultiFund Supermarket online - the next step involves rolling out an online ISA facility that can be white-labelled, to the IFA market in time for the 'ISA season'.
Phil Morse, Skandia's investment brand manager comments: "Skandia's entire business has been developed on the multi-manager fund supermarket concept. Essentially what we are doing is bringing a proven fund supermarket business online with Assureweb, one of the UK's leading providers of e-commerce solutions for the IFA market."
Morse says that Skandia will continue to offer IFAs and their clients access to multi-manager investing through traditional methods as well as new e-solutions.