Switch will improve frequency of trading and give other benefits.
As part of how Beanstalk works, we use a custodian to keep our customer’s money and investments safe in line with FCA client money rules. Although Beanstalk users don’t deal with the custodian directly, they hold contributions that are made in a designated trust account segregated from their own funds as well as buying, selling and settling investments that are triggered when money is added to Beanstalk accounts or allocations changed.
We recently decided to switch custodians and from 13th December 2022, we are using Seccl Custody Limited ("Seccl") as custodian for all Beanstalk accounts. Seccl (https://seccl.tech/) is part of Octopus Group who also own Octopus Energy and have £11+ billion in assets under management. They are authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority for the various activities they perform for Beanstalk (under number 793200).
We moved to Seccl as their service will allow us to make improvements to Beanstalk in a number of areas including:
-Trading frequency: we previously bought and sold investments once a week but with Seccl this will be done daily.
-Payment reconciliation: when a contribution is added to a Beanstalk account it first goes into a pooled client account at the Custodian and then, assuming all the references/ details are correct, it is allocated to the account. This reconciliation process will now happen continuously so contributions should normally appear in the app more quickly.
-Statement frequency: statements will now be available every quarter.
As Seccl uses different references for contribution and their client money bank account is different, the details for sending contributions to Beanstalk accounts have changed. These changes have been automatically updated for contributions made via instant bank transfer/online banking and Direct Debit. If you use stored bank details to send contributions yourself, you should update these. The new details will be given to you when you trigger a top up via bank transfer through the app.
We are excited about the move to Seccl which really helps us continue to improve Beanstalk. We have more developments planned for next year as we continue in our goal of making it really simple to save for you and your children’s future.