Quilter has backed FCA plans to dismantle obstacles to clients shifting their platform portfolios to a competitor and is supporting a ban on exit fees to help achieve this aim.

The wealth manager and Financial Planner, responding to consultation on the FCA’s Investment Platforms Market Study, has called on the industry to support proposed reform of the platform re-registration process.

It wants to see fund managers carry out “in-flight” share class conversions as investments are transferred to facilitate in-specie transfers.

Quilter says it believes overall the FCA’s proposals will make transferring between platforms “simpler and quicker.”

It is supporting the FCA’s suggestions, including that exit fees should be banned - seen by many as an obstacle to transferring.

Commenting on calls from “some industry players” for the ceding platform to carry out the share class conversions rather than fund managers, it believes this would carry a “number of disadvantages.”

These include platforms being required to hold thousands of new share classes during the transfer process and additional cost for platforms which could mean higher platform fees.

It wants fund managers to be allowed to conduct share class conversions at the same time as they are updating ownership records on unit registers as in specie transfers are completed. These so-called ‘in-flight’ conversions would be the “most efficient solution, “ says Quilter.

Steven Levin, chief executive of Quilter’s platform Old Mutual Wealth, said: “Switching platforms should be simple, straightforward and efficient for customers and the whole industry has a responsibility to deliver that.

“Quilter is supporting the FCA’s aim to make moving platforms simpler for customers. This includes our support for the proposals to end exit fees, incorporating ‘comparable services’ providers within these rules and requiring receiving platforms to give customers the option to convert into discounted share classes where available.

“We are also calling on the industry to go one step further to implement the best possible in specie conversion process in customers’ best interests.”