Gillian Hepburn from Platform People has said platform due diligence will be a "hot topic" in 2013 and should depend on philosophy and strategy of Financial Planning firms.
Ms Hepburn was speaking at the IFP's Accredited Financial Planning Firms conference being held in London today.
Ms Hepburn said: "Due diligence is a hot topic right now. I firmly believe we will see more about wrap and platform due diligence. Periodic and annual reviews should be done regularly and the FSA are talking more about platform due diligence."
When comparing various platforms, due diligence should depend on the "comparison between your functional requirements and the various platforms available".
These requirements could include themes such as investment proposition, active v passive, automatic rebalancing, attitude to risk and asset allocation.
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The Financial Services Authority has also said that it thinks it will be unlikely that advisers can use one platform but Ms Hepburn said she did not expect this would mean advisers should constantly move between platforms.
She said: "I fundamentally don't believe the FSA expects advisers to move their client back and forth between platforms."
A major part of this was due to the costs, which could range from £600 to £1,000 per client to move from one platform to another. However she said a "price-war" due to RDR was bringing costs down.
Other speakers at the conference today include Jamie Newell from IFA Solutions, Richard Stradling from Baker Tilly and Nigel Botterill from Entrepreneurs Circle.
In the afternoon there will be an extended round table Q&A session following feedback from last year's conference of how valuable the session was.
Financial Planner will be covering the conference all day with coverage on financialplanneronline.co.uk and tweets of sessions via our Twitter feed @FPM_Online. There will also be coverage in Financial Planner magazine.

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