Mar 2 2016

Nutmeg targets ‘human’ advice after FCA approval

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Nutmeg targets ‘human’ advice after FCA approval

The Financial Conduct Authority has given Nutmeg permission to carry out regulated financial advice.

Although no date has yet been set for the implementation of Nutmeg’s financial advice services, chief executive Nick Hungerford said the firm plans to avoid using robo-advice solutions and instead rely on human advisers.

“Being able to offer financial advice opens up a wide range of potential opportunities for customers and we are working as accurately as we can to define and deliver these,” Mr Hungerford said.

“When we launch our advice service it’s not going to be robo, it’s going to be human advisers to program our system to deliver the best advice. In the same way we have human teams actively managing our investment portfolios, we will have human advisers, just fronted up in a different way to one to one meetings.”

Nutmeg first announced its intention to provide financial advice last August (2015), with Mr Hungerford telling FTAdviser it was the logical “next step” in the firm’s journey.

He added that customers often ask for advice, but so far it is something the investment platform has been unable to provide.

AJ Somal, IFA at Aurora Financial Planning, said: “At Aurora we do welcome competition and any company bringing new things to the market is good.

“I don’t think Nutmeg will be in direct competition with IFA company’s specialising in high net assests, but they will definitely appeal to more technically literate and younger clients.”

lucinda.borrell@ft.com