The FCA management team sound like they are just back from an away day at Cold Comfort farm. The FCA regulator says it will approach things flexibly if firms struggle to get PI insurance due the the FOS limit changes.
As I may have written in a previous reviews, this feels like bad regulation. There is clearly a case to made that applying this cap to retail financial services to equalise things with corporate complainants is unjustified by the situation on the ground. It does only cover cases from now forward so it will be interesting to watch just how soon and how dramatically PI pricing moves to take account.
The head of distribution at Charles Stanley John Porteous expects IFA consolidation to speed up this year. The PI situation probably isn’t helping.
Warren Buffett believes the US economy is slowing with flashing red lights but he will stick to his strategy. Not all that surprising of course.
The FCA has devoted more than 300,000 man hours to Brexit, as Professional Adviser reports.
Phil Wickenden urges advisers not to put too much faith in unicorns in this case growth-oriented companies, often venture capital backed and tech-focused, that reaches a $1bn (£758m) valuation while private.
He counsels about getting too excited investing in them – through perhaps investing in PE, and instead sticking to publicly quoted firms. Returns from the unicorns are down 8% annually.
Reviewing the pathways proposal for drawdown in Corporate Adviser, Hargreaves Lansdown’s Nathan Long says that people could still get a nasty fright if investment markets go wrong. It could provide a false sense of security for some.
The UK has seen its first annual house price fall since 2012 according to Nationwide research as the Telegraph reports. It can’t be too much of surprise either.
