National advice firm Succession Wealth has launched an investigation after it suffered a cyber attack.
This morning Succession Wealth, which is owned by Aviva, confirmed it had notified the appropriate authorities after it was alerted to a potential cyber attack on February 8.
An investigation into what happened is still ongoing.
The firm said it communicated with clients and employees who were potentially affected as soon as it had verified some of the details and had some firm evidence of an attack.
The firm said: “The security of our clients’ information is our top priority and, as a precaution while the investigation is ongoing, we have quickly introduced additional security measures.”
It added: “Succession Wealth will ensure that clients will not suffer financial loss if their personal data held by Succession is misused as a result of the attack.
“We are working to assess and resolve this situation but at this stage we cannot comment on the nature of this attack.
“We will give further updates as and when appropriate to do so. We understand this will cause concern for our clients and we apologise for this.”
Aviva bought Succession Wealth last March in a deal worth up to £385mn.
At the time Aviva said the deal “significantly enhances” its presence in the wealth market as more people seek advice for their retirement and savings options.
Aviva said it would be able to offer advice to approximately six million of its customers through Succession Wealth
Of these, four million are workplace pension customers with £96bn assets under management, and approximately two million are individual pensions and savings customers with £139bn AUM.
Speaking to FTAdviser, last week Succession Wealth’s founder Paul Morrish said its deal with Aviva has seen more IFA firms approach him directly as opposed to the other way round.
Speaking to FTAdviser, Morrish said: “We've got a couple of deals in due diligence at the moment.
“There's a long list of firms of various shapes and sizes which we're quite well advanced with and would expect [to complete] in the early part of this year.”
amy.austin@ft.com
