UK-based Seven Investment Management is looking to enable financial intermediaries in its networks to compete with private banks by soft launching banking functions.

The investment platform will start offering a deposit service next week with a formal roll-out scheduled in the next couple of months. 7IM is also planning to offer a margin lending facility later this year.

Justin Urquhart Stewart, director and co-founder of Seven Investment Management, told WealthBriefing that the service will allow financial planners to take business from private banks by competing with their services for high net worth clients.

“Private banks, with some notable exceptions, are often bad versions of high street banks, with high rates,” Urquhart Stewart told this publication. “Regulation is moving in a different direction with the RDR (Retail Distribution Review).”

The banks involved in the initiative so far are RBS, Santander and Lloyds.