Altus’ Okell on financial services tech and the ‘mindset of embracing’

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17 December 2019
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A 37-minute watch.   

Kevin Okell is MD of Altus, tech experts that focus on financial services. In this wide-ranging interview with Lee Robertson, Okell chats through connectivity across different systems, ad valorem fees, Altus’ JV with Fundscape, and his view of ‘best’ when it comes to tech. 

Since its launch in 2005, Altus has been on a mission to drive efficiencies in financial services through the application of better technology. Okell is a founding partner and MD of both parts of the business: consultancy and software.

Acutely aware of the challenges the industry faces with technology, Okell points to connectivity across tech as his biggest bugbear, with the “mindset of collaboration” across software developers seemingly found wanting.

“However great your APIs are, however good your standards are, you still need people to talk each other”, adding “the practicalities of plugging these things together is not as straight forward as you think”.

He references fund transfers as an example, and how the best companies will get this done in a few weeks, but that the whole process is possible in under a minute.

A more holistic approach to standards is the answer, he remarks, pointing to the ease with which we send videos as a triumph considering the complexities of underlying technology and the varying systems that need to talk to each other.

He also questions the extent of innovation in some firms: “I think a lot of effort lately in this industry has gone into making the front-ends look beautiful” – “they’re essentially just presenting information”.

Also in the interview are his thoughts on how he thinks advisers have ended up with ad valorem charging lumped upon them, and what he thinks the “logical conclusion” of RDR will be.

In case you missed it, Lee Robertson also chatted to Brett Davidson from FP Advance on the 3-legged stool advisers are missing.

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