Vanguard Asset Management, one of the world’s leading providers of exchange-traded funds, has released the findings of a poll showing that better access on UK platforms and more education are seen as key to determining future allocation to ETFs.

Nick Blake, Head of Retail for Vanguard in Europe.

The poll, taken at the firm’s June Investment Symposium held in Manchester and London, shows that UK-based advisers believe that lower costs (32%) and better availability on UK platforms (32%) are the most likely reasons to start or increase their usage of ETFs.

A further 26% of those polled said more education was needed to help inform ETF asset allocation decisions.

Nearly all of the respondents in the poll plan to maintain (47%) or increase (50%) their ETF allocation over the next 12 to 24 months.

Nick Blake, Head of Retail for Vanguard in Europe, said: “We are seeing increased appetite for ETFs as many more advisers are recommending them for clients’ portfolios. However, it comes as no surprise that more education and better availability on UK platforms is needed to encourage greater usage.”

He added: “Over the last twelve months, we’ve seen increased traffic on our educational microsite for advisers, vanguardlearning.co.uk. It provides straightforward online learning on ETFs and other topics including bonds as well as guidance on how to manage the entire advice process. To make the right investment choices it is important to understand the differences between ETFs and other products that offer index exposure. Vanguard remains committed to educating the market on the benefits of ETFs as core building blocks of low-cost diversified portfolios.”

Research methodology

Vanguard examined the key factors for 220 advisers when considering ETFs, focusing on several broad categories, including: 1) likelihood of increasing/decreasing/keeping current ETF allocations and 2) reason to start using or increase usage of ETFs. The following questions were asked:

Do you think your usage of ETFs will increase / decrease / stay the same over the next 12-24 months?
Increase   50.25%
Decrease   0.5%
Stay the same   47.21%
Don’t know   2.03%

What would be the most likely reason for you to start using or increase your usage of ETFs?
Better availability on UK platforms    31.68%
Lower costs   31.68%
More education   25.74%
Client demand   10.89%