This is very important if arguably rather late in the day – the regulator has confirmed it is working with the Financial Services Compensation Scheme, the Financial Ombudsman Service, the Insolvency Service and Scotland’s Accountant in Bankruptcy to collate and share data on individuals and companies to combat phoenixing. If this produces results, it would be excellent news.
Royal London warns that the drawdown investment pathways risk providers effectively giving advice. There are a lot of pension industry comments in this vein. Is it really going to convince regulators to change their plans?
The following is a very impressive dissection of the costs of general insurance from MoneyBox presenter Paul Lewis, writing in Money Marketing, based on the FCA’s General Insurance Distribution Chain – Thematic Review. Commissions for odd kinds of insurance are off the scale. Coach trips, gap insurance and lots of commission to whichever firm is the distributor seem to be the order of the day. I do not always agree with Paul on everything, but this feels like a market failure and an important issue to highlight.
The chief executive of the Personal Finance Society Keith Richards is to meet with Treasury and the Financial Conduct Authority to discuss solutions to the issues financial advisers are facing when renewing their professional indemnity insurance cover.
A U-turn on the crazy decision to increase retail compensation in line with that available to companies from FOS would obviously not hurt. It does feel that a lot of the most important lobbying is being done by the PFS at the moment.
The FCA has embarked on a study looking at intergenerational fairness in finance. Clearly this makes some sense given the changing or profiles of wealth across the generations but surely only governments can really solve these issues.
Broker Shore Capital says the fact that ‘responsibility for legacy advice remains with the vendor’ is a positive case for investing in consolidator AFH. This surely makes sense though may not warm the hearts of other advisers who could face increased FSCS bills.
