Octopus Investments has appointed Charlie Taylor as the new Head of Octopus Cash and Octopus Choice, its cash management and peer to peer lending products. He will report into the new CEO for Octopus Investments Ruth Handcock.
Taylor takes over the role from Sam Handfield-Jones, who has been promoted into a new role as Growth and Innovation Director, where he will focus on creating completely new financial products and services for financial advisers and their clients.
Octopus Choice is a property backed P2P lending platform launched in 2016 and developed by Octopus Investments with advisers in mind. It now has over 1000 adviser supporters across the UK and over GBP220 million under management. It offers an easy to use app with real-time loan updates and targets around 4 per cent in interest.
Octopus Cash is a cash management solution launched in 2017 with now over GBP130m assets under management and 15 per cent month on month growth. It provides advisers and investors FSCS protection for cash up to GBP425,000 through one single application form, and works with numerous partner banks including Metro Bank, Aldermore, OakNorth, Bank & Clients, Cambridge & Counties, Shawbrook Bank and Teachers Building Society.
Handfield-Jones says: “There is a real need and opportunity to help more people manage their cash effectively, especially in a sustained low interest rate environment. Peer to peer lending is also growing in popularity as the current economic climate highlights the importance of asset diversification. Octopus Cash and Choice were created in partnership with financial advisers to address these concerns and we’ve seen a steady flow of money into both products which now manage more than GBP350 million on behalf of more than 10,000 investors and savers. Each month over GBP28 million is being invested and saved through them and we’re delighted that over 1000 financial advisers are using these products to help deliver on their clients’ financial goals.”
“The market opportunity for both products is huge and we are thrilled that Charlie has joined the team to take these products through their next stage growth of development, as we continue to innovate and develop meaningful products for advisers and their clients.”
Charlie Taylor joins Octopus following a varied career including extensive experience in strategy consulting for multinational corporates, private equity and data analytics, business delivery and marketing within fintech start-ups. He holds a PhD in Molecular Biophysics from Oxford and an MBA from Insead.
Taylor says: “I’m excited to have this opportunity to work with the talented team at Octopus to manage the Choice and Cash products and unlock the significant growth potential that exists in the peer to peer lending market and cash management sector. Data analytics and technology will continue to drive our product innovation as we work to create additional features to make both products even more user-friendly for advisers and direct customers.”
