Nucleus chief digital officer Andrew Smith will be stepping down from his position at the end of 2023, after spending 13 years at the company.
Nucleus chief executive Richard Rowney said Smith “has been a key part of Nucleus throughout its journey”.
Smith was part of the team that helped to launch the Nucleus Wrap platform in 2006 and played a “pivotal role by ensuring we [Nucleus] focused on the needs of advisers in those early years”.
Rowney added that Smith has been part of the Nucleus leadership team for the past two years and “his support and contribution through the integration of Nucleus and James Hay has been invaluable”.
James Hay acquired Nucleus for £145m in 2021.
Smith said that as he has spent a large part of his career at Nucleus, “it’s very much part of my DNA”.
However, he feels that now is the right time to leave and “look for a new challenge”.
Smith added: “It’s been a quite remarkable journey, not least as we’ve held onto our founding principle of serving the needs of advisers and delivering great customer outcomes. It’s been a privilege working with such brilliant teams over the years and I look forward to watching the continued success of the company.”
In September 2023, Nucleus welcomed Andrew Tully as technical services director.
Tully is responsible for the analysis and interpretation of regulation, legislation and taxation issues. His team helps advisers so they can better support clients.
In July, Tully left Canada Life after nearly five years. He was made redundant as part of a restructuring programme.
He joined the insurer in 2019 from Retirement Advantage, where he was pensions technical director.
Earlier in December, Nucleus Financial Platforms announced it is reducing the standard annual Nucleus Wrap platform charge by three basis points for holdings between £200,000 and £500,000.
The cut will deliver an average 3.2% reduction for eligible customers.
Under the new standard pricing structure, the charge for a customer with assets of £500,000 would reduce by £450 over five years.
In July 2022, the headline annual platform charge was cut from 35 to 33 basis points.
Nucleus said its “commitment to investing in price” has saved its customers more than £5m in the past two years.
33 basis points is still way to expensive compared to the rest of the market.
How many advisers used Nucleus because they were going to share in the profits when it was sold. I remember the sales pitch which was 100% focussed on the financial benefits to the ifa, not the client.