Ex-Winterthur CEO launches fully-online SIPP

Former Winterthur CEO, Clifton Melvin, has launched a new white-label SIPP for advisers, designed to utilise the full power of the Internet.

The Gaudi SIPP has been designed in consultation with IFAs, including its first customers, Nick and Martin Bamford of Informed Choice.

Gaudi says it has created a fully-online SIPP, which uses information sharing to ensure all parties involved can access accurate and up to date information at any time.

Melvin says the system has been designed to allow the client, adviser, SIPP administrator and inverstment administrator to access information on the SIPP without the need for paperwork.

Applications are completed online, ensuring all relevant fields are filled in, and can then be printed by the adviser for a wet signature. Gaudi says this process ensures forms are filled in correctly in the first instance, removing the need for paperwork to be sent back and forth between administrator and IFA.

"Until today SIPPS, even those purporting to offer online capability, have been hampered by expensive, inefficient legacy IT systems, restrictive investment options and clunky paper-based administration," says Melvin.

Gaudi says increased administrative efficiencies mean it can offer the full range of SIPP asset classes at a low cost.

Nick Bamford, chief executive of surrey-based IFAs Informed Choice, was consulted on advisers' needs in the creation of Gaudi and will be the SIPPs first customer.

"[Gaudi] have worked very hard to understand what is was we were seeking to do and then they delivered," he says.

"Their attention to detail and proactive approach has meant we can deliver a first class proposition to our clients."