Britain’s financial advisers are warming to the idea of full service and next generation investment platforms but are not yet willing to put their clients’ money where their mouths are.

The big four continue to dominate in 2010 just as they did in 2009, yet despite this there is a growing maturation of adviser attitudes towards investment platform wraps.

With vast flows of assets continuing to be directed through traditional investment platforms, such as Skandia, Fidelity and cofunds there is a growing appreciation of the differences between a platform and a wrap among advisers.

In 2010, there is a 7.2% increase in the proportion of advisers who deem that a wrap would be suitable for their clients compared to 2009, and a 9.1% increase year-on-year in the number of advisers who say that a wrap would be suitable for their business.

The above figures stand at 70.4% and 76.4% respectively in 2010.

Meanwhile there is a staggering 15.7% increase in the proportion of advisers this year noting that there are distinct differences between traditional platforms (investment supermarkets) and wraps.

Interestingly, despite these shifts in attitudes towards wrap platforms, it seems some negative perceptions persist.

Around a quarter of advisers believe a wrap would be expensive to implement into a business, while a similar proportion say they have not been impressed with the wrap offers they have been exposed to.

There is evidence that increasing parts of the financial adviser community are being convinced as to the merits of wraps from an offer, value and relevance point of view.

But this is not the case for all advisers.

Meanwhile, a collective of advisers are anticipating placing more business through platforms (48.8% for main platforms & 22.9% for secondary platforms) between now and the end of the year.

This is interesting, as it would appear that while advisers are just as inclined to post more business from an overall perspective as in 2009, there is a 10% increase in the amount of business that will flow to an adviser’s main platform versus an approximate 10% reduction in use of secondary platforms.