For the 30% of us who do invest, technology offers a range of choice.

The platforms DC saving offer us are quite different from what a google search for UK investment services offers. Talking to my son I realised that that he and his friends are investing  using trading apps and platforms that I haven’t even heard of. I have had a lesson!

How we will get our money invested depends…

There are three options coming up for those organising their finances around “saving”.

The first is a DC investment platform to capture employer contributions. This is the middle class default as it doesn’t involve any decision except how much to pay from pay. It  gives you the option to make decisions but is hardly an investment platform. In its most advanced state, your workplace pension becomes a self invested personal pension which is in practice wealth management with the unique tax-breaks of a pension.

The second will be collective pensions. It too will capture employer contributions , get the unique tax breaks and  require a decision only on contributions. This is not pretending to be an investment platform and instead pays you a pension.

The third is a self-invested or  advised wealth platform.  For around 30% of workers it is the way to go.  It is where wealth managers compete with apps and investment platforms  and increasingly with Artificial Intelligence.

Following what more American folk  seem to do!

There is a point when what happens in this country matches what has happened in America. There the use of platforms and advice for investments has followed the redundancy of agents broking  insurance. At first this was by  a simple digital comparison service and now by intelligent suggestions which is  more “intelligent” and a long way from the human agent.

For insurance, read investment. The arrival of this service in the UK is getting here rather quickly.

Moneysupermarket’s way into investment

This weekend, Money Supermarket is launching a platform aimed at its insurance buying customers to match the cash ISA service that recently went AI.

It’s greatest advocate (and founder) Martin Lewis has lately been explaining to people that keeping all savings in cash ISAs, is not a risk-free strategy with inflation the great enemy.

Now investments will be available for the first time via Moneysupermarket’s mobile app and website

This investment service will expand the market for investments , compete with wealth managers and hopes to become competition for AJ Bell, Hargreaves Lansdowne and Interactive Investor.

There are a lot of people for whom investment does not mean crypto-currency but could mean robotic ETFs as well as conventional index-trackers. So long as this market expands, so the threat to money kept on DC investment platforms increases. As I will explore in a moment, the self invested personal pension could have a competitor for people’s wealth – and a new benchmark.

Mony – the parent of Money Supermarket and a range of other digital offerings is offering the same products as others but at a slightly higher price, justified I would presume by the safety of the brand. This from Saturday’s  FT.

“Investment is still intimidating for lots of people — 70 per cent of UK adults don’t invest. We think there is an opportunity to help customers here,” said Peter Duffy, chief executive of Mony Group

What interests me , as a pension geek , is what Money Supermarket is offering as choice.

Moneysupermarket’s investment platform is starting out with 40 mutual and exchange traded funds, including Vanguard’s diversified LifeStrategy vehicles, mainstream funds such as S&P 500 trackers and more idiosyncratic AI and robotics ETFs.

Funds can be held either within a stocks-and-shares Isa or a general investment account. There is a 0.34 per cent platform fee, but trading is free.

This look an opportunity for Mony to put the value of its brand to work. The FT points out the market will soon see banks and a variety of support

Holly Mackay, Boring Money’s founder and chief executive, said competition to reach first-time investors is high.

“All the banks are gearing up to reach those very people,” thanks to the UK’s new “targeted support” regime, which allows firms to provide more guidance to help people invest

Can Moneysupermarket build a space for itself in a growing investment market as Pension Bee has done in the self-invested pension space? Will it be able to harness its capacity to help people take informed decisions without becoming a wealth-manager or a trading platform?

What interests me most is that investment is becoming increasingly accessible to the 70% who haven’t done it yet. What this will mean to pensions we have yet to see.

My guess is that we’ll see an increasing bifurcation between pension wrappers around investment platforms and a movement towards retirement guidance and pensions paid from collective funds. Both branches of this bifurcation have a long way to go. What DC is right now is neither one nor other – as a 64 year old holding onto my pot – I see no Moneysupermarket for pension wealth- though Pension Bee is getting there.

For regular income we have yet to find a retail option for those wanting to turn pot to pensions, we have the annuity option- but this is not investment. Retirement CDC and guided retirement income are still three years away and I’d need to have an employer choosing to participate in workplace CDC for me to swap pot for pension.