Vanguard UK platform reaches 145,000 clients on back of Sipp launch

Vanguard now has 145,000 clients on its direct-to-consumer platform in the UK, including 15,000 with Sipp accounts, Money Marketing has learned.

The company says it has had a strong year for growth and is pleased to have seen “little change” in investment behaviour from clients during the market volatility in recent months.

Vanguard UK Personal Investor senior investment planner James Norton says: “Since the start of the year over 65,000 new investors have joined Vanguard UK Personal Investor.

“Particularly encouragingly, both new and existing investors have demonstrated excellent investment behaviour through a year of, at times unprecedented, economic and market volatility.”

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Between February and April, a period that included the fastest US bear market in history, 95 per cent of Vanguard UK investors made no changes to their normal investing and trading behaviour on a weekly basis, Norton said.

“Investors’ have the best chance of investment success by tuning out the noise, focusing on their long-term investment goals, and focusing on what they can control – staying disciplined and keeping costs low. We’re pleased to see investors increasingly gravitating towards this long-term and low-cost approach.”

Vanguard’s Sipp product went live in February. It had been on the cards since 2017, but roll-out was delayed. On its launch day, some customers had difficulties accessing the registration page, which the company apologised for.

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But other users described it as a “very slick process” while some wanted to know if a junior Sipp was in the pipeline.

Around 20,000 people had pre-registered their interest in the product via email, Vanguard previously told Money Marketing.

The company was unable to give further details on its move into the advice space in the UK, which is still widely predicted after the firm received approval from the FCA to enter the UK advice market in February.