The firm said the hub’s purpose is to help advisers serve their clients, grow their businesses and drive their professional development.

Vanguard 365 provides educational content and events to support professional development and allow advisers to accumulate CPD points.

It has the ‘five key pillars’ of practice management, client relationships, financial planning, investment knowledge and market commentary.

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There is also access to a webinar series covering topics including coaching clients through economic cycles, investment strategy and the economic outlook.

The hub is part of what Vanguard said is ongoing investment in the services it provides UK financial advisers and intermediaries.

Robyn Laidlaw, head of European distribution, said: “Faced with increasingly complicated client needs, regulatory scrutiny, and a difficult market environment, advisers themselves are increasingly time poor.

“At the same time, the need for high quality advice is growing. The FCA have been explicit in their view that many consumers still struggle to make critical decisions about saving and investing, or accessing their pensions, without help.

“We want to be present, through Vanguard 365, not only as a helping hand for advisers in supporting their clients, but also to help explain and advocate for the value of advice itself.”

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He added: “With this in mind, we will continue to invest in the services and support we offer. We are currently hiring in areas like portfolio consulting and analytics, and advisers can expect to hear more from us on these, and other developments, over the course of the year.”

The Aussie regulator is alleging that Vanguard had “misleading conduct in relation to claims about certain environmental, social and governance (ESG) exclusionary screens applied to investments in a Vanguard fund”.

Asic alleges Vanguard made “false and misleading statements and engaged in conduct liable to mislead the public” in representing that all securities in the Vanguard Ethically Conscious Global Aggregate Bond Index Fund (Hedged) were screened against certain ESG criteria.

The fund was reportedly marketed to investors seeking, among other things, securities with an ethically conscious screen.
Investments held by the fund were based on an index called the Bloomberg Barclays MSCI Global Aggregate SRI Exclusions Float Adjusted Index (Index). Vanguard “claimed the Index excluded issuers with significant business activities in a range of industries, including those involving fossil fuels”, Asic said.

However, Asic alleges that ESG research was not conducted over a significant proportion of issuers of bonds in the Index and therefore the Fund.

As at February 2021, Asic alleges the index and the fund included issuers that violated the applicable ESG criteria, including:

• for the index, 42 issuers which collectively issued at least 180 bonds; and
• for the fund, at least 14 issuers that collectively issued at least 27 bonds.

Asic alleges that these bonds exposed investor funds to investments which had ties to fossil fuels, including those with activities linked to oil and gas exploration.

Sarah Court, Asic deputy chair, said: “We know that investors are increasingly seeking investment options that exclude certain industries, and investors need to be able to rely on investment screens to help them make these choices.

“In this case, Vanguard promised its investors and potential investors that the product would be screened to exclude bond issuers with significant business activities in certain industries, including fossil fuels.

“We consider that the screening and research undertaken on behalf of Vanguard was far more limited than that being promised to investors, and we consider this constitutes another example of greenwashing.”

Asic is seeking declarations and pecuniary penalties from the court. It also seeks orders requiring Vanguard to publicise any contraventions found by the court.

Rosebridge Asset Management Limited (RAML) will provide asset allocation and fund selection analysis for its range of risk rated active and passive investment solutions.

This is the first custom model portfolio solution that Vanguard has rolled out in the UK. It is also one of the first partnerships of its kind for Redington.

Phil Rose, chief executive of RAML, said: “The UK financial planning community is striving for this, and I believe we will see larger mid-market financial advice companies, not only build bespoke relationships with global investment firms, but also with platform providers to help increase efficiencies, reduce costs but most importantly enhance the service level agreements offered to consumers.”

Neil Cowell, head of UK distribution at Vanguard, added: “We will launch a range of index fund-based model portfolios later this year that we trust will continue to serve Rosebridge and their clients going forward.”

It received regulatory approval to provide retail advice in the UK three years ago.

In April 2021, Vanguard Personal Financial Planning was launched, offering ‘a tailored financial plan’ at the cost of 0.79% a year. It was available to investors with £50,000 or more in their Vanguard accounts that they were ‘willing to put towards retirement’.

In January 2022, International Adviser reported that the famously low-cost investment house was planning a UK personal finance hiring spree.

However, a spokesperson said on 1 March: “We launched the service for clients of our existing platform with specialised retirement needs. However, after careful consideration, we have concluded that our clients are looking for other, more adaptable forms of financial planning from Vanguard.

“We have, therefore, taken the difficult decision to close the retirement planning service. We are committed to the development of further financial guidance and advice services, to give investors the best chance of investment success.”

The Personal Financial Planning section of the Vanguard website is no longer accessible.

The Aussie regulator said it was “concerned” that Product Disclosure Statements for the Vanguard International Shares Select Exclusions Index funds may have been “liable to mislead the public by overstating an exclusion”, as it “claimed to prevent investment in companies involved in significant tobacco sales”.

Greenwashing is the practice of misrepresenting the extent to which a financial product or investment strategy is environmentally friendly, sustainable or ethical.

The Vanguard funds were “structured to exclude certain investments in tobacco, however, while this screen applied to exclude manufacturers of cigarettes and other tobacco products, it did not exclude companies involved in the sale of tobacco products”, the Australian watchdog said.

Asic deputy chair Sarah Court said: “Greenwashing is not limited to environmental claims but extends to misleading ethical propositions. Entities which seek to promote ethical investing must ensure their statements are accurate and able to be substantiated.

“Investors can feel strongly about not investing in tobacco production, manufacturing and sales, and where tobacco-exclusion investments are promoted, the entity making those claims must be able to substantiate the full exclusion of those investments.”

Vanguard paid A$39,960 (£22,176, $27,041, €25,616) in compliance with the infringement notices on 1 December 2022. Payment of an infringement notice is not an admission of guilt or liability.