Fundhouse Octopus has completed its £10m acquisition of technology business Seccl and announced the cost of its platform building service for advisers and wealth managers.
The deal was first agreed in August when Octopus announced it was entering the platforms market and would be moving staff from its existing Octopus Wealth division over to the new business.
With the acquisition of Seccl the firm will be able to offer advisers the ability to create their own platform in house, including offering funds, investment trusts and share dealing.
In a statement today (September 11) Octopus announced its API custody solution, the software which allows businesses to build bespoke investment platforms, will be priced at 0.1 per cent of assets on the platform, with no costs for set-up or onboarding.
An additional per user cost will apply where a user interface is used for advisers who wish to build their own platform on top of Seccl technology.
Sam Handfield-Jones, co-head of Seccl, said: "To complete the deal is really exciting and means we can get to work as we set out to realise our ambition. We want to transform the customer and client experience across retail financial services – and Seccl’s technology genuinely has the potential to do that.
"The response following our first announcement has been incredibly positive and served to demonstrate that the industry is crying out for some new competition."
Hugo Thorman, co-founder of Seccl, said: "The industry is ripe for another round of disruption. The technology that we’re developing at Seccl has the potential to drive down costs and improve the customer experience by making it easier than ever for systems to integrate.
"Being part of Octopus also means we have the financial backing and complementary expertise to make this happen much more quickly."
Octopus said now the deal is completed it will look to expand the Seccl team with additional engineering, product and design staff.
Last month Mr Handfield-Jones pledged the new platform would be as easy to use as a smartphone and would create a mass market platform for advisers set to incorporate banking and insurance products alongside investment and pension functions.
The Seccl name will remain in existence for the time being, but in the longer-term the company will likely be rebranded to the Octopus name.
rachel.mortimer@ft.com
What do you think about the issues raised by this story? Email us on fa.letters@ft.com to let us know.
