Fidelity Worldwide Investment has appointed Mark Till as head of its UK direct business, a role which he will take up at the start of next year.

In his new role Till will be expanding the range of services which Fidelity offers direct investors (of which the firms has some 250,000), such as access to its funds supermarket service, Fidelity FundsNetwork. Fidelity is of the view that the execution-only market is set to boom after the implementation of the Retail Distribution Review at the start of 2012.

“Direct investors are an important and growing part of the market for us, particularly given the changes that the Retail Distribution Review will bring,” said UK managing director Gary Shaughnessy.

Till joins from Standard Life Direct, of which he was managing director, but the majority of his career was spent at Barclays, where over a 22-year period he held various senior roles covering brand, marketing, premier and business banking.