The biggest news of the week is arguably a discussion paper from the FCA which sets out a possible new regime for labelling funds in terms of sustainability along with plans for new disclosures from asset managers both at firm and at fund levels about climate change.
Bloomberg suggests UK funds now face a stronger labelling regime than EU funds.
Of course, it is relatively early days, but the Treasury does seem to want to go further than the EU on green financial matters to become a centre of excellence. Will these proposals survive a meeting with the reality of investor demands and needs?
In terms of the impact on advisers, it depends who you listen to.
It is framed either as a radical shake up covering almost all that advisers recommend or a relatively light touch change.
There is a lot of to go into in terms of a brief news review, but one important mooted change is that many funds look set to be classified as responsible likely those applying ESG integration with funds taking a more focused approach givn a sustainable label.
For funds not fitting into such categories there are some suggestions they could even be labelled non-sustainable though that feels quite a severe step.
One key point raised on social media by consultant Clive Waller and not yet in the media – advisers recommend portfolios not funds.
As we noted a couple of weeks ago, a separate paper is promised to deal with advice, sustainability and suitability, which, it must be hoped, will dovetail with this other FCA work.
The week also saw the creation of a new campaign group the Digital Advice Group.
The founding members are Abrdn, Barclays, Hub, OpenMoney, Netwealth,
Vanguard and Wealth Wizards chaired by financial consultants Boring Money.
It will set out to promote the benefits of financial advice and alternatives to traditional, face-to-face models.
To quote the FTAdviser story, the group believes by raising awareness of digital advice and the range of services it makes available, it can help to close the advice gap and support more individuals and their families to benefit from regulated financial advice.
Interesting to see if the interests of the broad advice sector and this disparate group of companies coincide in the coming years or if there will be some friction.
On a related topic, Schroders and Saunderson House are reported as suggesting that the robo-takeover will never happen.
A note of caution of course being that it certainly doesn’t mean digital hybrid advice will not prosper. We do need to be quite careful in our labelling.
The newly-elected general secretary of Unite, Sharon Graham has written to the FCA demanding trade union recognition for its workforce.
In a letter sent on 3rd November, Graham wrote to the FCA's chief executive Nikhil Rathi requesting unionisation, giving the FCA ten working days to respond by law.
One to watch. It does seem to be an unhappy workforce over in East London.
