The latest M&A deals in wealth management.

Octopus Group, the London-based financial services and energy firm, has completed its £10 million ($12.4 million) acquisition of wealthtech start-up, Seccl Technology Limited, after it received UK regulatory approval.

The deal was agreed in principle in August.

Seccl works with financial advisors, wealth managers, discretionary fund managers, fintechs, or new firms entering the sector. It uses an open application programming interface custody solution, allowing businesses of any size to rapidly build bespoke new investment platforms more easily and at a lower cost. (APIs are a set of routines that build software and allow different systems to talk to each other.)

Octopus has also announced that the outsourced API custody solution will be priced at 0.1 per cent of assets on the platform, with an additional per user cost where the user interface is also used. There will be no costs for setup or onboarding.

“The acquisition comes at a time when many advisor and wealth management firms are struggling with rising costs and limitations of legacy systems, and where there is a growing pressure to provide customers with a smoother and more intuitive user experience,” Octopus said.