Oviso set for expansion
The fragile economy is opening up new opportunities for Derby-based Oviso Financial Services as businesses are forced to restructure and reduce the size of their staff, Oviso's director has told Insider. Sarah Fullaway said that Oviso is looking to recruit two additional financial advisers before the end of the year and take additional office space next year.
"Businesses are downsizing, and this leaves their key personnel more valuable to the business than ever before," Fullaway told Insider.
She added: “The protection market has historically been dominated by the banks, which don't specialise in this area of the market.
"We’re in a unique and very fortunate position in the market and continue to receive a significant amount of business from other professionals who are more comfortable working with a specialist rather than a generalist."
Fullaway said that changes are afoot in the financial services market, however – recommendations put forward in the Retail Distribution Review (RDR), carried out by the Financial Services Authority (FSA) as a key part of consumer protection strategy, are to be enforced.
The changes, which come into force in December 2012, demonstrate that the FSA is looking for clarity over the provision of financial advice and a move towards the industry becoming more specialised.
This is why Fullaway believes Oviso will grow. She said: "Whilst Oviso will not be affected as we do not offer retail investment, we believe that this will provide us with the platform to demonstrate our expertise – in a financial service market which is under more and more pressure to specialise rather than trade as generalist IFAs.
"With this in mind, we have plans to continue to our expansion programme, with further recruitment planned for later in the year. We're also looking at taking on some extra office space next year, as space is tight at our current location."
Fullaway didn’t rule out buying out rivals, either. She said: "Moving forward, we’ll look at acquisitions; on the road to growth that’s what we want to do. However, for now we want to concentrate on getting the best value out of the systems and processes we have in place. We're going to make the best of what we’ve got before looking at buying other companies."
Last year, Fullaway and fellow directors Lee Mortimer and Matt Simpson had to fully rebrand the company – previously called Avisa – because of complaints from payments giant Visa and insurance company Aviva.
