2018 in Review & Orca’s Big Plans for 2019

2018 has been a big year for Orca. We launched the Orca Investment Platform, secured another funding round, and expanded the business in personnel and location. Not to mention, plans have been put in place for the launch of the Orca ISA and the Self-Select’ portfolio builder, a complementary product to the existing Model’ portfolio.

Here is our 2018 timeline of significant milestones”¦

February 2018 – Orca Investment Platform Launches

In February, we launched the Orca Investment Platform, an aggregator which integrates with multiple major peer to peer lenders, enabling investors to spread their capital and risk across platforms, sectors, and borrowers.

This was a massive moment for Orca. Years had been spent building up to this point and a tremendous amount of effort had been invested by many, many people. Special thanks to those who supported us, you know who you are.

September 2018 ”“ Seedrs Equity Crowdfunding Campaign Launches

We ran our first ever equity crowdfunding campaign. Using the Seedrs platform and admittedly unsure of how successful the campaign would be, we were delighted to exceed our £500,000 target in under two days!

With more than 400 investors, spanning dozens of countries, the response from the crowd ”“ including Orca users ”“ has been an especially rewarding feature of the year.

December 2018 ”“ Orca Secures Over £500,000 in Equity Funding

Following the close of the Seedrs campaign, and with contribution from venture capital funds, angel networks and private investors, Orca secured £574,280.

The funds will contribute to Orca’s development and growth plans for 2019.

Now, 2019, here’s the big pitch”¦

Q1 2019 ”“ Orca ISA

The Orca ISA will be a first of its kind in the market where investors can build their own portfolio and hold it in an ISA. Current ISA rules stipulate that people can divide their tax-year ISA allowance of £20,000 between ISA (e.g, Cash, Stocks & Shares and Innovative Finance ISA) accounts however they wish. But, they may only subscribe current tax-year subscriptions to a single IF ISA each year. This means it is very difficult to build a diversified P2P portfolio which is wrapped in an ISA. Investors typically hold one P2P investment within an IF ISA, while the remaining P2P investments are held in taxable general investment accounts.

With the Orca ISA, investors can hold multiple P2P providers in a single IF ISA. Here are the key benefits:

• Invest in the Orca Model portfolio suitable for hands-off investors or Orca’s Self-Select portfolio for the more active investor
• Earn interest up to 6.5%
• Earn returns tax-free
• Diversify ISA money across multiple P2P providers
• Transfer old ISA money
• Invest ISA money at non-ISA P2P providers

The company is already building a Wait List of investors eagerly awaiting the launch of the ISA.

Join the Wait List

Q1 2019 ”“ Self-Select Portfolio Builder

In addition to the launch of the Orca ISA, we are also launching a new product to complement the existing Model portfolio product.

The Self-Select portfolio builder allows investors to implement their own strategies, selecting only the P2P providers and products they wish to hold in their portfolio. What’s more, investors can build their portfolio and hold it in the Orca ISA.

2019 ”“ Integrate New Lenders

Throughout 2019 we’ll be seeking to introduce new lenders to the aggregator, offering investors greater choice and diversification. Updates on this will come in the new year.

2019 ”“ On-board EU Investors

We are investigating how we can on-board EU investors, something which we believe will stimulate growth in the UK P2P market and offer EU investors a simple access-point to UK P2P lending.

To find out more about our exciting new product developments, click here

Finally, a special thanks to everyone who has invested with Orca, your support is very much appreciated; the value early adopters offer businesses is immeasurable and helps shape future product iterations, so thank you from the entire Orca Team. Have a fantastic 2019!

An Origo and Fintech milestone

By Anthony Rafferty, Managing Director of Edinburgh-based Fintech Origo

This month marks a proud moment for Origo and a distinct milestone in Fintech history, namely the 10^thanniversary of the launch of the Options Transfers service.

Origo was established in 1989 as a not-for-profit organisation with the remit to help the industry improve its efficiencies, cut its costs and improve the service to consumers. The Options Transfers service was launched in December 2008 to help improve the transfer times for pensions for consumers and the industry.

And the market certainly needed improving. At that time transfers of pensions, largely between pension providers and from pensions into annuities, was taking on average 50 working days.

From launch Options Transfers immediately started to cut down those times. The current and long-standing average transfer time is now just 11 calendardays, including the time required for banks to process monies through BACS.

In developing the Options Transfers service, Origo worked closely with the industry to revamp what was a largely manual process, and re-engineered it through the creation of new frameworks* and technology. These new legal and technological developments were instrumental in swiftly helping to reduce the time taken to transfer.

But the work didn’t stop there. We established user and steering group forums, working with the pensions companies within the large Options Transfers community, to monitor and review their transfer performance, which continues to help drive further performance improvements even today.

And, following its success with pensions, Options Transfers was quickly upgraded to support individual savings account (ISA) and general investment account (GIA) transfers, as well as occupational transfers. It is also the only complete transfers service in the industry, enabling secure and speedy transfers of pensions, GIAs and ISAs.

The service also helps pension schemes and third-party administrators to effect bulk transfers of pension members, where for example a scheme changes administrator or an employer changes scheme.

Furthermore, the users of Options Transfers are part of a trusted community ”“ over 120 financial services companies use the service ”“ focussed on improving their operations and delivering better service to the consumer. The Options Transfers user group and steering group feed into the service to ensure we are delivering what the industry needs including complete readiness ahead of any regulatory changes, the Pensions Freedoms being a significant case in point.

Above all, Origo’s Options Transfers service is focussed on improving outcomes for the industry and consumers and we are proud that since launch, we have transferred over £160bn for the industry, saved the industry over £600 million and importantly, saved consumers over 225 million transfer days.

10 years of Options Transfers service: Top 10 facts

1. Options has transferred over £160bn in pensions, ISAs and GIAs for the industry
2. 3.25 million pension transfers have been completed since launch
3. 40,000 transfers have been processed each month since pensions freedoms
4. The average transfer through Options takes 11 calendar days
5. The fastest transfer processing completed by a ceding provider has been less than a minute
6. 1.2 million transfers by ceding providers took place in less than 4 days
7. Options has saved consumers 225 million transfer days
8. Options has saved the industry over £600 million
9. Close to 120 financial services companies use the service
10. Origo Options is the longest running complete pension and ISA transfer service.

*Since 2017, the Origo Standards and Common Declarations have been operated by Criterion. The Common Declarations are free to use: https://www.criterion.org.uk/what-criterion-offers/

Scotland’s Minister for Trade, Investment and Innovation visits fintech Origo

Blog written by Anthony Rafferty Managing Director at Origo.

Origo was delighted this week to welcome Ivan McKee, Scotland’s Minister for Trade, Investment and Innovation to our Edinburgh headquarters.

He visited to talk about the work we do on behalf of the UK financial services industry, in particular to see a demonstration of our world-leading solution for the Pensions Dashboard and to hear about the important work being developed in Scotland to make the Pensions Dashboard a reality.

The purpose of the Pensions Dashboard is to find and display an individual’s pension savings on one screen and is intended to encourage people to engage with and, where appropriate, take action on their retirement income planning.

In his official comment on the visit, Mr McKee pointed out that Scotland is

“a highly competitive business location, with investment built around the quality of our research and innovation as well as the skills of our workforce.”

He added:

“Origo looks set to reinforce our reputation as a centre of excellence for financial services and FinTech by transforming the sector’s operating efficiencies. This includes the introduction of their Pensions Dashboard which will allow members of workplace pension schemes to see all of their pension savings at the same time in one private, secure place.”

At Origo, we are excited by the potential for Pensions Dashboard to not only benefit millions of consumers and potentially improve their financial outcomes, but also to help to drive further innovation in the pensions market by facilitating an open pensions environment.

We have been at the heart of the Dashboard project since its announcement in 2014, responsible for helping develop and prototype the core technology ”“ the Pension Finder Service ”“ and we were selected to provide a prototype to the HM Treasury sponsored Pensions Dashboard Prototype Project, which was the project managed by the Association of British Insurers (ABI).

More recently we provided input to the Department for Work & Pensions’ Feasibility Study and we have continued to develop the technological solution to an advanced state of readiness ”“ testing to an anticipated 15 million users, for example.
Our remit from our foundation in 1989 (making us one of the UK’s longest established FinTechs in Scotland and the UK) has been to improve the financial services industry’s operating efficiencies, lowering costs for market participants and improving outcomes for consumers.

In this respect we work collaboratively with government, other industry bodies as well as product providers, platforms, financial advisers, portals and software suppliers, to find new ways to cut costs and make processes more efficient.

Other industry-critical work we have carried out, for example, has enabled significant reduction in the amount of time it takes to transfer pensions (from c.50 working days to an average of 11 calendar days) and ISAs, as well as delivering and servicing digital IDs for 8 out 10 financial advisers in the UK.

The Minister met staff around the building and we talked also about Origo’s aspirations for the future of FinTech in Scotland and the UK, which we believe is very bright indeed.

NoMo Money: A PFM for today’s consumers

Article written by Author: Andrew Garden ”“ Product Manager @ The ID Co.

When I was approached two years ago by our company’s CEO, James Varga, and asked whether we could develop a consumer facing App, I was distinctly nervous about whether we could produce a product that could compete with some of the major applications that had already been launched and were launched soon after our conversation.

Two years on from that fateful afternoon, I couldn’t be happier with the release of our new customer facing App, NoMo (for No Money Mo Money!)

With hindsight, it was a great decision to focus on the customer side as well as the B2B offering, DirectID. Since its launch in 2015, DirectID has been a great success ”“ integrating with over 5,500 banks and building a customer base in Europe, north America and the UK.
Now it’s time for NoMo to take some of the weight.

Obviously, we’re a late entrant into the personal finance management (PFM) app space. In that time, there have been numerous releases, including many of the ones that we’re now very familiar with, from Yolt to Money Dashboard to Emma. I’ve taken a lot of time in looking at these apps, to understand their functionality, their key attributes and what we could do differently.

Essentially what I’ve found from having the time and space to develop NoMo, is that if you look at an App such as money Dashboard it has different functionalities ”“ from integrating multiple accounts, to categorisingspend and budgeting and planning.
That’s fantastic. I’ve used Money Dashboard myself and really enjoy it. But what we didn’t want to do was to recreate another version of what is already a very successful App.

So instead I took another approach, and asked “what is the biggest issue that people have with their money?” I think most of can agree, and unless we earn huge salaries, that the biggest issue is budgeting from one month to the next. From our research we know that this can create a feeling of helplessness around money, and this manifests itself by us burying our heads in the sand and hoping financial difficulties will go away.

In a saturated market, I wanted to find a way to make NoMo both stand out and be of value to users. We decided to go with a unique approach by giving NoMo a personality with references to popular culture. This way, regardless of whether users are up or down, they are spoken to like a friend. We wanted to make looking at your finances less like going to the dentist when you know that pain is on the way!

So, what we wanted from NoMo was to make it easy for people to know whether they were doing well in their finances. Ultimately this came down to one simple question “Do I have more or less money than at the same stage last month?” to which NoMo will show a simple graph ticker or message with a value that represents how much more or less money is in your account.

The summary provides a visual representation of the user’s budgeting performance over the month. The days of the month in orange represent the days the user has been down. Those in yellow represent the days the user has been up. The days in white are the days that the user has been on their average.