Advisers’ eyes on Octopus news following ‘short’ extension to freeze
Advisers with clients in the Octopus Inheritance tax service will be watching events this week very closely. We know that the freeze on redemptions has been extended for a short period of time. Hopefully, and according to Citywire New Model Adviser which has done a lot of digging on the story, more information will be available next week.
This was the Telegraph’s follow up take.
To quote: “The fund, which has 18,000 customers and is known as the Octopus Inheritance Tax Service (OITS), has been frozen to redemptions since early July, meaning savers have been banned from getting their money back.
“Octopus was supposed to have reopened the fund either this week or next. However, it said on Thursday that the closure would “need to remain in place for a short additional period”.
Frankly, it doesn’t feel as if the communications from Octopus have been sufficient for several weeks now. Hopefully things improve next week.
A big report from Saturn found that 57% of LLMs are making mistakes. Both free and paid services were getting things wrong. The research was done by a paraplanner and feels significant. The story is reported here by the Intermediary and analysed by Octo Members here – Saturn’s report – an unprecedented challenge to LLMs and all from a paraplanner’s research too!
It may make sense to read the following report alongside the above research. Boring Money’s Advised Investors Report has some interesting statistics regarding the use of AI by advised clients.
This is Money Marketing’s headline – Nearly half of £1m-plus advised clients turn to AI for financial help.
It feels even more challenging to have those conversations if the AI is getting things wrong.
These reviews are generally about the UK news, but this move in the US may be worth keeping an eye on – Anthropic’s Claude has teamed up with a host of financial services firms to offer a whole system for aiding financial advice with Charles Scwabb a ‘custodian’ for advisers (seemingly a network/platform) as the leading firm.
Citywire New Model Adviser has a neat explanation in its introduction.
“The suite comprises a set of data integrations with various vendors and Claude-based capabilities tailored to the wealth space.”
Will it come to the UK?