AJ Bell has launched a new streamlined platform, AJ Bell Touch, to help financial advisers implement investment advice for their clients.

The platform allows customers to receive, review and approve actions from their advisers, enact payments to their accounts through open banking integration, view their portfolios and contact their adviser through the secure message feature.

AJ Bell said it is the first fully proprietary digital proposition of its kind in the UK adviser market to provide advised clients with an entirely mobile app-based customer experience.

Advisers can send their recommendations and key documents to their clients through the adviser website for quick approval.

AJ Bell Touch will sit alongside the firm’s existing Investcentre advised platform and custody solutions institutional offering, allowing advisers to service new clients with smaller portfolios within the propositions, helping firms to broaden their target market and tackle the advice gap.

The platform offers a solution with an all-inclusive custody charge of 0.25 per cent on pension assets and 0.20 per cent for ISAs and GIAs with no other fees, duties or levies payable.

AJ Bell advised platforms product director, Mark Rendle, said: "With many financial planning uncertainties on the horizon, not least the government’s proposed changes to the way pensions are taxed on death, regulated advice has never been more important.

"According to the FCA, as few as 9 per cent of Brits received regulated financial advice in the past year, with only 17 per cent turning to government-backed guidance services.

"We believe Touch will help to address that advice gap by connecting advisers with those clients who might otherwise find themselves below the average asset value threshold by reducing the administrative burden for both parties and augmenting that trust relationship rather than seeking to replace it."

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