- Deal gives Nutmeg access to John Lewis client list
- The Partnership wants to quadruple its financial services presence
In a bid for mass-market appeal, digital wealth manager Nutmeg has agreed to offer a platform investment service to the very respectable customers of John Lewis Finance (JLF), the financial services arm of the John Lewis Partnership. The tie up will give Nutmeg the opportunity to offer JLF’s well-heeled customers Stocks & Shares ISAs, Junior Isas, and a general investment service.
Nutmeg came onto the market as an easy-to-use challenger ISA provider, but is now firmly within the establishment after JP Morgan Chase bought it out earlier this year.
John Lewis is investing £100m over the next five years to quadruple the size of its financial services division and the Partnership aims to have 40 per cent of its profits generated by non-retail sources by 2030.
While John Lewis Finance is a directly-owned subsidiary of the John Lewis Group, all of its services are provided by third parties. For instance, HSBC handles the John Lewis Card, Munich Re the home insurance, while Nutmeg now has the investment business.
The Partnership said the agreement is not a formal investment mandate but a simple formula where the fees are jointly-split with Nutmeg and that they had picked Nutmeg’s ESG products as the centrepiece of the service. As we have recently reported, the deal is merely the most crowd pleasing in the rise of the so-called robo-advisers over the past 18 months.
