A life and pensions firm has taken a majority stake in technology business as it looks to develop a ‘groundbreaking’ robo-advice service.
LV= said it will inject development capital into Wealth Wizards which will enable the company to deliver on its ambition to develop a widely available ‘white-label’ automated advice platform.

Robo-advice has become one of the hot topics in the sector lately, with a debate on-going as to if it is a friend or foe to Financial Planners.

IFP chief executive Steve Gazzard believes it can prove beneficial and help better define true Financial Planning, while Life Planning founder George Kinder, who has launched his own web-based service said there were tremendous benefits.

Wealth Wizards will power and develop LV=’s already established CORA retirement advice service.

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This is supported by LV=’s in-house regulated telephone advice service and uses Wealth Wizards’ algorithm based advice platform to generate personal advice.

Andrew Firth, chief executive of Wealth Wizards, said: “This deal marks an important milestone in our development of digital advice solutions. CORA breaks new ground in the implementation of so called ‘robo-advice’ in the UK market and LV=’s investment will enable Wealth Wizards to continue to pioneer the development of innovative advice products.”

The remaining shares are owned by Wealth Wizards’ founding management team and the business will continue to operate its independent financial advice service which is focused on developing low-cost advice solutions for the workplace market.

Richard Rowney, managing director of LV= Life and Pensions, said: “LV= has always championed the importance of advice in the retirement income market and we are pleased to agree this deal with Wealth Wizards.

“The way people fund their retirement is changing and so is the way that people access their savings and this deal is a great opportunity for us to support the development of digital solutions to meet the evolving demands of retiring consumers.”