UK energy provider Octopus launches Moneycoach
Octopus Group, a London headquartered financial services and energy firm, is launching Octopus Moneycoach with the acquisition of Hatch Financial Coaching.
The acquisition is part of the energy group’s bid to take financial coaching to the mass market. The details of the deal are undisclosed.
Founded in 2017, Hatch Financial Coaching, will be rebranded to Octopus Moneycoach.
It intends to invest £10 million into Moneycoach to scale the offering
Octopus Moneycoach works primarily with employers who offer its services as part of their workplace benefits, with existing clients that include MoneySuperMarket, Sony Interactive Entertainment, Epson, and Experian.
Octopus employees will also benefit from Moneycoach.
According to Employee Benefits, some 15% of Octopus’ then-700 UK employees took up the financial coaching benefit in the first four weeks.
Now, Octopus says it wants “to take financial coaching to [the] mass market”, transitioning from the customer to the operator.
Financial coaching with annual meetings is offered as a free service for employers and the employee.
For around £14 per month (net cost using salary sacrifice) they can start building a full financial forecast, helping them to balance their money optimally, across spending, saving, investing, pensions and mortgages.
Human coaches
It claims the rebranded version of Hatch “fill[s] the gap between robo-advice and traditional advice”. The service offers a suite of financial planning tools, ranging from software to real financial coaches.
Over the next two years, Octopus has committed to increasing the number of its financial coaches from 30 to 200.
The firm intends to appeal to those who want a human interaction, but don’t have the assets to warrant traditional wealth management advice.
It intends to invest £10 million into Moneycoach to scale the offering into a full-fledged business.
Adam Price, Hatch’s founder and CEO, will remain CEO of the newly acquired service.
As part of the scaling strategy, Octopus says it wants to partner with traditional advice firms to boost the offering.
These advice firms will serve employees with more complex planning needs, while Moneycoach will continue targeting those earlier on in their career.
“While the advice industry serves many people extremely well, there are still vast swathes of UK population who don’t get any form of financial advice,” explains Simon Rogerson, co-founder and CEO of Octopus Group.
Price, Moenycoach’s new CEO, adds that “for lots of people, any proper advice they get tends to be siloed and focused on specific products, such as pensions or mortgages”.
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