SimplyBiz Group has become Fintel as part of the company’s plan to create a “house of quality brands” and move away from a branded house.

The move has been on the cards since the group acquired Defaqto in 2019 and forms part of its digital strategy.

Speaking to Mortgage Strategy sister magazine Money Marketing ahead of this morning’s unveiling of the Fintel brand and logo, joint chief executive Matt Timmins revealed the group is on the hunt for more acquisitions.

He says: “A key part of what we will be doing going forward will be to look for new opportunities for growth through acquisition.

“And we also have our strategy which we are unfolding, which is organic growth and digitising many aspects of the business.”

The Fintel name has been coined by combining the three “core elements” of what the business offers: financial services, technology and intelligence.

Timmins describes the rebrand as an “evolution of the strategy of the business”, which is to provide more services to the different component parts of retail financial services.

He says: “We aim to help the market evolve to its greatest potential. We are ingrained in providing support services and fintech in the market and we see our role as helping manufacturers, advisers and consumers.

“We don’t manufacture our own products and we don’t give advice. We see our role as the conduit and the heartbeat at the centre of financial services, helping everyone else do a better job.”

Individual brands which sit within the group will remain the same and maintain their own identities.

Fintel says it wants to give the brands more prominence in “who they are and what they do within their individual markets”.

Timmins explains that the purchase of the research, ratings and fintech business, Defaqto, was a “pivotal” moment for the group.

He says: “Here, you had this fantastic business with an excellent reputation, really strong brand, almost 80 per cent consumer recognition and we were putting Defaqto under a business, the SimplyBiz Group, which was known for doing something completely different.

“I felt at that time that we were not doing justice to the hero brands we had under the group.”

With a background in marketing, Timmins also looked at other businesses that have done similar things with strong brands under their stable. He cited alcohol beverage group Diageo, which has more than 200 brands, and LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton with around 75 luxury brands, as a couple of examples.

“I wanted to see how other businesses in the market have evolved to give prominence to their hero brands but create this kind of house with a real sense of purpose.”

Talking about how the decision was made for the lime green colour scheme of the Fintel branding, Timmins adds: “We wanted to create a modern, fresh and vibrant brand in the world of financial services. There’s plenty of reds and blues when you look around, there’s not many lime greens.

“We also wanted to create a brand that was core to our personalities. I describe this brand to our staff as 80 per cent grounded in reality and 20 per cent aspirational.”

“We talked about the values of excellence and knowledge and being grounded and important personality traits. But then there’s a dose of aspiration in there with what this business is set up to do for the future. I think Fintel gives us the right stable to go out and achieve that.”

Recognising the group’s almost two-decades in the industry, Timmins says the new launch is “not just turning the handle” on the SimplyBiz Group. “It’s new but with a nod to the heritage and history,” he says.

The loyal customer bases of SimplyBiz and Defaqto may be pleased to see the operating brands remain the same, they will just sit beneath a new PLC.

Timmins says that while the group often reviews new businesses, it is not currently in negotiations with any.

But he suggests there are two broad areas of focus – the first is a business likely to add to the customer base and scale of the group’s operation, such as a competitor.

And the second is a business with “unique technology and demonstrated traction and usability”.