The FCA is considering a thematic review into DB pension advice according to New Model Adviser. Advisers would do well to note the language used i.e. that New Model Adviser understands this is a possibility.
This wording suggests a very good source for this but is clearly not officially announced if it ever will be. In addition, as the language makes clear it is only one option. Ideally, this source should be someone within the regulator, yet it could be someone who has worked there, a consultant who works with the regulator, or perhaps an adviser firm or provider who has been told as much by the regulator. Difficult one to know as different websites tend to have different standards and different ways of conveying this to readers and of protecting sources.
As if to provide grist to the mill, an adviser who signed off on 500 DB transfers has been handed a warning notice by the FCA. These transfers are pre-2009 however, and as everyone knows, circumstances have changed.
It seems that everyone is talking about the subject. Baroness Altmann has suggested that DB transfers could hold the key to dealing with some aspects of the care crisis. Those who agree with Altmann believe the FCA has not caught up with the situation on the ground. Others do not.
APFA suggests that the new guidance service should flag the fact the most advisers’ initial meetings are free.
It may annoy those who have spend years trying to get the message across that advice is not free (although it meant something different in the commission world of course).
The DC Investment Forum, a group funded by two investment managers, has called for a league table of defined contribution performance, which would, of course include auto-enrolment.
Ian Lowes argues that criticism of structured products stems from utter ignorance. Harsh words indeed that have provoked quite a response especially the suggestion that the products pay advisers less hence their reluctance to recommend them.
Finally an occasional look at Mortgage Strategy shows it has too many adverts to be readable – as in a pop up ad covering the front page requiring a click to see the news, an ad several inches deep pushing down the news, an ad in two wide columns either side of the news and an ad coming in under the first layer of news plus another less intrusive pop up.
One understands the need to fund these publications, yet, as you can see, it was very difficult to get to Andrew Montlake’s excellent assessment of the mortgage market in such an extraordinary inflation and economic environment. There is a very good mortgage website hiding underneath all this.
