This follows Chancellor Jeremy Hunt's Autumn Statement, which revealed LTAFs will be made available to retail investors via the IFISA, alongside open-ended property funds with extended notice periods, effective from April 2024.
AJ Bell, Hargreaves Lansdown, interactive investor and Evelyn Partners' Bestinvest told Investment Week they currently have "no plans" to offer an IFISA, but they shared mixed views as to whether retail investors should have access to LTAFs.
Autumn Statement 23: LTAFs to be included in ISAs amid sweeping regime overhaul
Jason Hollands, managing director at Evelyn Partners, said: "LTAFs are regarded by the FCA as higher risk products and are not suited to execution-only retail platforms like Bestinvest, given their focus on illiquid asset classes and longer redemption periods. Direct-to-consumer investments platforms will be especially mindful of this under the Consumer Duty framework.
"This is not to say there is not a place for fund structures that can provide greater asset class diversification, but decisions to purchase investments like by these should be accompanied by professional advice as to their suitability, unless the buyer meets the criteria of being classified as a sophisticated investor."
Tom Selby, head of retirement policy at AJ Bell, echoed Hollands, arguing that while LTAFs may be suitable for institutional investors, "it is hard to see the case for making them available to ISA customers".
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He noted the mismatch between the illiquidity of the LTAF in contrast to the flexibility an ISA can provide and, as such, he urged retail investors wishing to access LTAFs to "fully understand what they are getting into and the associated risks".
But Ben Seager-Scott, head of multi-asset funds at Evelyn Partners, noted that the reforms set out by Hunt aimed to start aligning dealing liquidity of funds with liquidity of the underlying assets, while also providing clearer guidance on "concepts like liquidity to deter hot money or a mismatch of expectations".
As a result, the changes could help "refresh the open-ended property fund market and, along with LTAFs, maybe make IFISAs more popular overall".
While he recognised the potential of the ISA reforms, Seager-Scott argued many retail investors will likely not be comfortable with the concept of illiquidity and "potentially being locked into these products for protracted periods of time", especially considering that open-ended property funds are "generally intended for more of a retail audience".
"I think the potential market is probably rather limited overall," he said.
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Susannah Streeter, head of money and markets at Hargreaves Lansdown, noted that until recently LTAFs could not be held in ISAs because ISA assets "need to have the ability to be sold within 30 days".
She argued, however, that there is a benefit in allowing retail investors to access LTAFs, although she said a Stocks & Shares ISA would have been the better choice for such an expansion.
"The expansion of them within Innovative Finance ISAs cracks the door to this opportunity, but as most money is held in Stocks and Shares ISAs, the chancellor missed the opportunity to open this up further to holdings in these ISAs," she said.
Similarly, for open-ended property funds, she argued extended notice periods would not be "the best way to invest in property because of liquidity concerns", adding that closed-ended funds "are a better way to get pooled exposure, and they are already available through an ISA".
LTAF retail extension receives mixed reaction as platforms weigh challenges
Jonathan Miller, director of manager research at Morningstar, agreed with Streeter, arguing that allowing retail investors to access strategies that traditionally have only been available to their institutional counterparts was a positive development, but education needs to be at the forefront.
He said: "The way these [funds] are priced will require education as will an understanding of what is being invested in. Just because it is only been available to more sophisticated clients up until now, does not mean that every fund under this banner will be a success."