The move is squarely aimed at reducing costs and other barriers to investing and passing on savings to clients, the firm said.

UK private bank Coutts has struck a deal with US asset giant BlackRock to launch six exclusive funds available in November to Coutts' and parent group NatWest's clients covering roughly 12 million customers.

The announcement made on Monday follows a run of changes at the London-based wealth firm, which are focused on reducing and simplifying fees. Earlier this month, this service wrote about the bank's shift to a one-off flat fee for investment advice, with no ongoing implementation fees and cost reductions for those using the NatWest investment platform.

The new funds comprise three active (US equities, UK equities, Global Investment Grade Credit) and three index funds (US equities, UK equities and Europe ex-UK equities). BlackRock will choose managers for the active funds through its third-party selection platform, and manage the three index funds in house. “All six funds will benefit from being run on BlackRock’s market-leading risk management platform, Aladdin,” Coutts said, adding that its investments committee would continue to set overall strategic and tactical allocation decisions.

“We have said it before, but ultimately cost should never be a barrier to investing,” Coutts’ CEO Peter Flavel, said. “BlackRock’s platform will benefit our clients significantly. Its scale and global research capabilities means our asset management team have the best possible tools at their disposal to do what they do best - make clever, market-beating investment decisions.”