LGIM, M&G and Royal London are among the asset managers with the top performing websites, FSF analysis shows.
Web performance is increasingly important as more and more discovery of financial brands takes place online. Not only does it define the website user’s experience, but Google takes account of web page performance when determining search rankings.
Methodology: Using the GTmetrix tool from Carbon60, we assessed the web page performance of the homepage of the largest 25 asset managers by UK AUM (for companies that offered other services alongside asset management, we used the landing page for the asset management offering). The AUM figures were drawn from ADV Ratings.
The GTmetrix grade uses a generic device to assess the overall performance of the web page for users, turning this into an overall percentage score. A and B grades require little improvement and likely offer a good experience, while D and E websites have some key changes which could optimise performance. It’s worth noting that these rankings do not relate to the aesthetic value of the websites or how engaging they are, but simply how well optimised they are in terms of loading times and experience for users. Companies within each band are placed in alphabetical order.
The rankings are as follows:
A-grade (90%+)
Intermediate Capital Group
Legal & General Investment Management (LGIM)
M&G
Newton Investment Management
Royal London Asset Management
Walter Scott & Partners
B-grade (80%+)
Ashmore Group
Aviva Investors
Investec
Pantheon Ventures
C-grade (70%+)
Abrdn
Baillie Gifford
Bluebay Asset Management
HSBC Asset Management
Northill Capital
D-grade (60%+)
Insight Investment
Jupiter Asset Management
Man Group
Mondrian Investment Partners
Ninety One
Prudential
Schroders
E-grade (50%+)
Aegon
Janus Henderson
JO Hambro Capital Management
The lower performers on the list tended to be let down by large, slow-loading elements. For example, the overall worst performer’s website took 3.7 seconds to visibly populate, while taking 4.2 seconds to display the largest image.
Render-blocking resources: A common issue was the presence of “render-blocking” resources, including fonts, HTML or JavaScript files, that were slowing the first load of the page. When a browser encounters a render-blocking resource, it has to download this first before it can download the rest of the page.
These resources could mean that the viewer has to wait a long time before seeing anything on the website. Identifying and eliminating these will allow first renderings of the site to appear sooner. By default, anything in the <head> section of the HTML will be processed before other items on the page, unless a “defer” tag is added to it.
Slow server response times: Some website servers were taking a long time to respond to the viewer’s request. This can be improved by optimising application code, implementing server-side caching and upgrading server hardware.
Large network payloads: Some companies forced users to download large network payloads – for example, one company in the D-grade camp had a 2.7MB video embedded on the homepage, with a total payload of 4.63MB on the page. While rich multimedia content may be more appealing to users, it may slow down loading times. This issue can be reduced by properly sizing and compressing images, and deferring resources that are non-critical.
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