Octopus-owned white label platform Seccl has launched an Irish business as it targets European expansion.
The firm said expansion was being driven by demand from existing customers looking to launch investment propositions outside the UK.
Irish fintech leader Ronan Gahan has been appointed CEO of the new business, known as Seccl Ireland DAC.
Mr Gahan founded Conexim, an open-architecture investment platform, in 2010. Conexim grew to become one of the largest investment platforms in the Irish market, used by more than 300 regulated entities, and was acquired by Irish Life Group in 2020.
He is the founder and former chair of the Irish MiFID Industry Association and sits on the Central Bank of Ireland’s financial industry innovation forum.
He will work closely with executive chair David Ferguson and Seccl’s wider leadership team.
The team has been strengthened by the appointment of former M&G and Allfunds executive Miguel Ortiz as senior adviser. He was formerly group COO at M&G and chief transformation officer at Allfunds, as well as a partner at BCG.
David Ferguson, executive chair at Seccl, said: “These are the first major steps in a European journey we’ve been building towards for some time. With Seccl Ireland DAC established and Ronan at the helm, we’re putting structure behind that ambition.”
He said the firm’s European expansion is starting in Ireland because “it gives us a strong financial services ecosystem, a clear market opportunity and the foundations to build a repeatable model for further European expansion.”
The Irish business is busy with the development of the proposed new Personal Investment Account (PIA), with hopes of being among the first infrastructure providers ready to support firms once the new investment account structure is introduced.
Ronan Gahan, CEO of Seccl Ireland, said: “Ireland has a strong and established financial services ecosystem and, with the proposed new Personal Investment Account (PIA) in development, there’s an opportunity to help more first-time investors and savers access the market.”
Seccl was acquired by Octopus in 2019, Seccl and now processes around 6m transactions and 25,000 transfers (roughly 15% of the UK transfers market) each month.