For professional adviser use only
The deadline for implementation of the Senior Managers and Certification Regime (SMCR) is now less than three months away. The regime was rolled out to banks and insurance companies three years ago and, after 9 December 2019, it will also apply to all 47,000 companies regulated by the FCA (Financial Conduct Authority). The FCA describes […]
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Since pensions freedoms were introduced in 2015, the financial advice world has seen an increase in the demand for advice, as well as an increase in demand for distribution from product providers. Over the last year, many product providers and advice businesses have moved to owning multiple parts of the value chain or have established […]
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Behavioural finance looks at how psychological influences and emotions can affect the decision-making process and identifies how investors are assumed to behave, based on traditional theories. Established financial theory focuses on risk and return, whereas behavioural finance suggests investors are overconfident with respect to gains and oversensitive to losses. An understanding of factors such as […]
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We have recently spoken about the amount of time advisers are spending on administrative and office management tasks, which is estimated to be as much as two hours per day. You could consider some straightforward solutions to reduce administration time: Challenge your processes Challenging your current processes and brainstorming with people from all areas of […]
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FCA figures suggest smaller advice firms are a good deal more profitable than their larger counterparts but, wonders Tim Sargisson, does this suggest not enough resource is allocated to risk management and oversight? Earlier this month, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) provided its latest analysis of the intermediary sector based on data from the Retail […]
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The recent survey from Nucleus showing that the number of advisers spending more than 40 per cent of their time on admin has tripled in a year should worry us all. Clients do not pay fees for advisers to deal with paperwork, so working two days out of five for free is not good business. […]
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A raft of new regulations introduced in 2018, including MiFID II, GDPR and PROD have proved to be a challenge for the financial services industry, by increasing the burden of administration on firms, requiring more time to be spent on making sure these are implemented effectively. A recent survey1 of firms also indicates there are […]
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Advisers spend significantly more of their week in their business than on the golf course, writes Tim Sargisson, so when it comes to reading matter, it is important to be clear where their priorities lie Let me start by posing a question: how many people reading this piece have taken the time to read the 2019 […]
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Here we take a brief look at the current state of the financial services industry and how things could pan out over the next few years. It was recently reported1 that the average age of an adviser is currently mid-50’s and with nearly 7000 advisers expected to retire within the next five years, it is […]
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Speaking at the recent Money Marketing Interactive conference, FCA co-director of life insurance and financial advice supervision Debbie Gupta highlighted a major concern for the regulator, which is advisers’ failure to call out bad practice. As she pointed out: “We need a common understanding on both sides that we are in fact on the same […]
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Recent research by Fidelity Funds Network1 asked advisers to name and rank their top three current business challenges. The results show that four out of five (80%) advisers rank compliance and regulatory change in the top three challenges, with 50% of respondents to the survey considering it to be their number one challenge. Common complaints […]
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Last week saw the release of the Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA’s) board minutes from their meeting on 28 February 2019. These minutes make interesting reading and indicate that the FCA board seemed to be amenable to the idea that backing the increase in the Financial Ombudsman compensation limit from £150,000 to £350,000, with effect from […]
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