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Moneyfarm: ‘There's a plan to offer pension advice’

However it doesn’t stop there as Daprà said Moneyfarm will likely see more deals of this nature.

He explained that the wealth market is so segmented and each consumer is different.

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He said there might be consumers that are attracted to the Moneyfarm proposition, but others who prefer other brands because they may have existing relationships with banks.

“We're definitely acquisitive in terms of our willingness to grow at scale,” he said.

“The market is so big so we see a lot of opportunity to attract customers by providing our operating model technology and competence without necessarily having our own brand always there.

“We are looking to continue to partner with established banks and asset managers that want to go direct to consumer and want to have a digital wealth proposition. We're talking to a few firms in the UK at the moment.”

Daprà said its market would be big banks that have strong retail presence, but don't have a strong investment in digital investment options.

Two markets it is looking at are big banks with little distribution and a lack of proper digital investment offering and asset managers seeking a direct to consumer proposition.

“The third market is IFA firms that need to serve small customers where they might not be suitable for the traditional face to face model because the complexity overrides the advice,” he said. 

“The FCA now relaxing the rules on guidance fundamentally goes in the direction of our operating model."

IPO

Last month, the digital wealth adviser also appointed former Virgin Money boss Dame Jayne Anne Gadhia as its chairperson.

She previously founded money management app Snoop after 11 years at Virgin Money where she led the lender to IPO.

Daprà said Moneyfarm brought in Gadhia because of her experience leading in the consumer facing financial service business.

“It was advocating simplicity with the brand and storytelling. This is a lot of what we want to do with Moneyfarm,” he said. “That was really the key reason and I think that we needed, as a board, an independent chair.” 

However, he added: “When it comes to the permanent capital in the IPO option, nothing is ruled out but it's very premature to talk about that. 

“From an entrepreneurial journey perspective, it would be a very nice outcome, but I don't think we have settled on any particular plan.”

Dapra said over the next five years, it plans to make sure the company is profitable.

“The second point is this transformation from discretionary provider to really a wealth manager. So having pension advice and having a full suite of offering for our segment of customers,” he said.