There are a lot rumblings of discontent around firms’ qualifications in the press recently and this week it is the turn of chartered status for firms. Rowley Turton’s Scott Gallacher declares himself very disappointed that neither the CII nor Unbiased have taken swift enough action to stop firms coming up in the ‘chartered’ search when they are not.
He says that having alerted Unbiased to descrepensies between Unbiased and the CII databases, some firms have been removed but others have not. There does seem to be a demonstrable fairness issue here.
I also hear rumblings about the behaviour of some chartered firms notably over pension transfers. Maybe it’s time for action, though the grapevine tells me, this may be in the offing.
Novia is proving to be one of those less heralded successes among platforms. Profits jump to £5.6m up by 72.5 per cent.
This is interesting – the Merian Chrysalis Investment trust has been launched because of the dysfunctional nature of the stock market.
Fund manager Richard Watts explains the reasoning as follows - "That dysfunctionality means companies are more reluctant to join the stock market, so leave it much later to do so, meaning even fewer of the returns are available to stock market investors by the time the business eventually comes to the market."
Is this a warning sign? Dependency on the state pension is increasing.
The Office for National Statistics says the average retired household received cash benefits worth £12,612 in 2017/18, of which 83 per cent was state pension income.
Five years ago, this figure stood at 77 per cent of the total average of cash benefits.
The CBI warns about the dangers of No deal in the context of Conservative leadership election. This would have been quite a remarkable development only a few years’ ago.
The FCA has visited 11 Sipp firms since its Dear CEO letter outlining issues around suitability of investments following the Berkeley Burke court ruling last year discussed here on legal website Out-Law.
Envizage founder Vinay Jayaram calls for a fundamental reappraisal of advice beyond box-ticking, risk-rating and recommending one of a few portfolios. His view is that digital advisers are doing this and that advice is so much more.
Advisers may have confused sustainability with ethicssays Ayres Punchard’s Chris Welsford who says IFAs need to ensure clients’ investments align with their values, rather than assuming all ESG funds are good and conventional funds are bad.
