Octo Members, the UK’s fastest-growing community of financial services professionals, has joined forces with marketing and public relations consultancy MRM, to launch a research and insight joint venture.

 

Octo Insights will go live later this month. It will see the two businesses combine their skills and experience to provide those operating in and around the financial services sector with a range of tools and solutions designed to improve understanding of the current climate and issues and make the most of future trends and thinking.

 

As part of the proposition, the Octo Members community, which boasts c4,000 members, will be invited and encouraged to help directly influence industry thinking on areas such as regulation and public policy, product design and development and service requirements and standards. Participants will in turn gain access to the latest thinking of some of the most engaged and progressive advice professionals in the country.

 

The Octo Members community was launched in 2019 by Lee Robertson and Andy Brown with a view to rekindling the passion and energy of real debate and idea sharing in the pursuit of best practice.

 

MRM’s roster of clients covers all sectors in financial services across insurance, mortgages, pensions, investments, advice and fintech. The agency has a long track record servicing the full range of institutional, B2B, and B2C financial institutions – from specialist disruptor startups through to established household brands.

 

The joint venture is the latest addition to MRM’s insights and original content offering, which includes the twice-yearly Money Matters Index and Young Money reports – findings from which were recently cited in the Financial Conduct Authority’s paper on regulating ‘finfluencers’. It also runs the award-winning Mouthy Money blogzine and podcast.

 

Octo Members founder Andy Brown says: “Over the years we have created an amazing community of active and engaged individuals passionate about the advice sector and the important role it plays. Through Octo Insights, we will be listening more intently to what that community has to say and combining it with our proprietary data and analysis to push for positive change across the industry.”

 

MRM Group CEO Andrew Appleyard says: “Lee and Andy have created one of the most progressive, engaged and respected communities the sector has ever seen. By combining our skills and experience through Octo Insights we are looking to harness the enormous power of that community, capturing and analysing the views and actions of its members so that they can be represented at the very highest level and have the most impact.”