The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has refused to authorise Alexander Jon Compliance Consulting Limited (AJCC) to provide regulatory hosting services, so effectively it cannot underpin compliance support for appointed representatives.
The regulator suggested it did not see a demonstration of a viable business model.
I do think it is getting harder to become authorised or to offer other services around advice, if people and firms are deemed not up to scratch.
It may even be an indication that the regulator is doing some of what it said it would in terms of preventing certain firms from operating.
Of course, it must be frustrating for the firms involved as well.
This is interesting from the Telegraph which sees the Bank of England increasingly blamed for letting inflation run so high. It was of course a very difficult balancing act. My view, I think, is that we are discussing one or two months at most, and maybe the scale of increase. I suspect with the huge shut down and restart in the world economy, the war and the problems with lockdown in China, that prices would still be roaring ahead.
Interesting to see how the Bank reacts to such pressure but as we learned a week or two ago, it has already turned pretty hawkish.
Andrew Bailey will be grilled by MPs next week, which should make for interesting viewing. Treasury select committee chairman Mel Stride is clearly concerned about a wage price spiral.
Hugh Sergeant, head of value and recovery at River and Mercantile, says that value and recovery stocks represent a good way to manage through inflation. Of course, he would say that, but investors will be looking for suggestions and ideas, so I wouldn't entirely fault him for talking his book.
Others will be pouring over the accounts, but the CII has reported a consolidated operating surplus of £3.3m for 2021. That is clearly the right direction, but a lot of goodwill has been lost on the PFS side of things in recent years.
Ed Dymott, managing director, wealth at Benchmark Capital, believes some private equity-backed consolidators will not survive as he suggests in this New Model Adviser interview.
Clearly conditions are far from benign, but there will also be worries about the FSCS, were a big firm to crash. Perhaps if it is for economic reasons not regulatory ones, it will be a lighter load.
