Seccl, the Octopus-owned embedded investment platform, has launched its own fully digital and entirely paperless drawdown Sipp.
The new drawdown functionality follows Seccl’s accumulation Sipp – that went live towards the end of last year.
It provides advisers who use Seccl-powered platforms with a flexible way of supporting their decumulation clients.
Seccl’s chief commercial officer James Holmes led the development of the new Sipp functionality.
He said: “While many platforms allow advisers to instruct drawdown digitally, behind the scenes they typically rely on internal workflows and manual processes to make it happen.
“As a result, the pension drawdown process still takes far longer than it should – and creates too much opportunity for manual error. It’s why we set about building what we think is the market’s first fully automated drawdown Sipp – one that removes all back-end manual processing and helps advisers to more quickly, easily and flexibly manage their clients’ drawdown journeys.”
The Sipp is typically offered to platform clients on a white-label basis, with Seccl – an HMRC-registered Sipp and ISA manager – providing the underlying custody and wrapper administration.
But the technology has been built in such a way that it can be used on a standalone basis by other custodians or Sipp scheme administrators.
It can also be fully embedded via API into any number of other applications elsewhere in the advice journey.
According to Seccl it built the new drawdown pension in-house, on the same API-first principles as the rest of its infrastructure solutions.
Holmes added: “For full control and flexibility, we knew we had to build it ourselves. We wrote our first lines of code at the end of January and placed it in the hands of our first customers at the beginning of June – all with zero downtime, thanks to our focus on continuous deployment.”
The drawdown Sipp is currently only available on an advised basis – and priced at 0.10%, up to a maximum of £120 per year.
Seccl’s said its engineering approach favours the frequent deployment of smaller functionality changes over larger, less frequent upgrades.
Its developers now release new code four times a day, with the aim of daily double digit releases by the end of the year.
Commenting the Sipp launch, Financial Technology Research Centre chief executive Ian McKenna said that since the Retail Distribution Review advisers have not needed to sell other people’s products.
He also said that across the advice tech market, suppliers want to deliver the benefits advisers need to remain competitive in a world of increased margin pressure.
McKenna added: “It is stunning how many major institutions have not grasped this.
“Many of the largest platforms are writing their own obituaries through their obstinacy and arrogance. This is classic Darwinism; it will not be the largest or the most powerful who will survive but those who can best adapt to a changing environment.
“The advice community itself has been written off many times in the past, but has thrived due to its ability to adapt. New platform technology providers are demonstrating the same will be true in their market. Seccl is making a reality of what so many others have talked about for so long, the difference being Seccl is actually delivering.”
