Speaking on this latest FTAdviser In Focus podcast on the topic of how protection fits into family financial planning, panellists discuss why it is not just important to curate wealth, but also to protect the people bringing that wealth into the household. Tony Mudd, divisional director for tax and technical support at St James's Place; Kathryn Knowles, managing director at Cura Financial Services; and Alun Beynon, head of distribution for intermediary protection at Scottish Widows, tell Simoney...
Aug 24, 2021•30 min
Last month the Financial Conduct Authority warned that social media platforms were playing an increasing role in putting consumers at risk of harm through adverts for financial products and the rise of financial influencers - or "finfluencers". Advisers aren't immune either, with the regulator expressing concerns that the use of certain social media platforms by advisers wasn't always helping consumers. This week FTAdviser digital editor Damian Fantato is joined by Hugh Johnson, head of proposit...
Aug 20, 2021•21 min
As the world tentatively emerges from the pandemic, the thoughts of many market participants are starting to turn to the next phase of the economic cycle, and the potential for higher inflation to take hold and disrupt markets. In this podcast, Remi Olu-Pitan, multi-asset investor at Schroders, Chris Darbyshire, chief investment officer at Walker Crips, and Charlie Parker, managing director at Albemarle Street Partners, discuss the options for investors seeking to prepare portfolios for higher i...
Aug 18, 2021•40 min
This year marks a decade since Vanguard's Lifestrategy range launched in the UK and to say the passive funds had proven popular would be to downplay the situation. The five multi-asset funds are now worth £29bn and earlier this year their monthly inflows hit £1bn. But Lifestrategy range, which costs just 22bps, isn't just popular with investors. Advisers have also flocked to the range over the course of the past decade, integrating it into their propositions. So, what effects has this had? This ...
Aug 13, 2021•31 min
Much has been made of the need to start saving as early as possible and to keep this habit going as long as possible. But when it comes to pension provision, are the current products available suitable for all generations? Is the current advice or perceived wisdom around pension planning as appropriate for someone aged 20 as it might be for someone in their 40s or 50s? And why should it matter how old someone is when it comes to having a proper conversation about long-term retirement provision? ...
Aug 10, 2021•35 min
Last month the Financial Conduct Authority published its business plan for 2021-22, setting out how it plans to adapt itself to the "profound forces transforming the entire landscape of financial services". But what does this mean for financial advisers? The FCA has said it will be conducting a review into the scope and coverage of the Financial Services Compensation Scheme. Will this bring about the reform that advisers want? And what impact will the tougher approach on authorisations have? Thi...
Aug 06, 2021•26 min
Last week the government announced a U-turn in its cladding guidance. It said leaseholders living in buildings under 18 metres tall would no longer need external wall application (EWS1) forms. Many leaseholders have found themselves “stuck” in properties deemed undesirable by lenders due to the risk of huge cladding removal bills - some estimated at as much as £70,000 - hanging over them. Now, high street lenders HSBC, Barclays, and Lloyds Banking Group have committed to reviewing their practice...
Jul 30, 2021•32 min
Over the next few decades it is estimated that trillions of pounds will pass from one generation to the next: primarily from baby-boomers, who have ridden the wave of rising asset prices to their millennial children, who haven't always been as lucky. But ever since the pension freedom reforms of 2015, the big worry many savers have had is how they can turn their pension savings into an income so they can enjoy themselves in retirement. So what role does the pension have in the intergenerational ...
Jul 26, 2021•26 min
Many in the advice profession have debated the benefits of face-to-face versus digital advice for several years. But over the past 18 months, many advisers have been unable to offer face-to-face advice and many robo-advisers have retreated from the market after finding the market wasn't as big as they thought. So what does the future of advice look like? M&G Wealth, which is currently expanding into the advice market after launching last year, believes the answer is hybrid advice. But what d...
Jul 23, 2021•32 min
According to data published by the government, in 2018-19 there were more than 34,000 taxpayers who reported their pension contributions exceeded their annual allowance - with excess payments amounting to £817m. Savers also struggle to stick within the lifetime allowance with more than 7,000 people exceeded the allowance, incurring a tax charge. This week reporter Amy Austin examines why so many savers struggle to stay within their allowances and why the number of people exceeding them has conti...
Jul 16, 2021•21 min
The Great Wealth Transfer is about to begin in earnest, where a predicted £5.5trn is set to pass from older to younger generations over the next couple of decades. While this may well bypass the so-called 'squeezed middle' - or Generation X - the financial services industry is well aware of the need to help all generations understand the value of money. But what we are also starting to see is the importance to advisory firms of getting more young people into good savings habits, and reaching out...
Jul 12, 2021•28 min
Over the course of the past 18 months, the government has spent a lot of money to get the UK through the Covid-19 pandemic. But Rishi Sunak, the chancellor of the Exchequer, has made repeatedly clear that the bills we have racked up during this period will soon be coming due. This puts into sharper relief the debates around tax which have been rumbling on in the background for several years. Reforms to capital gains tax, inheritance tax and pensions tax relief are often discussed, but might they...
Jul 09, 2021•22 min
The year 2020 was a landmark one in lots of ways, including for ESG investing - if for no other reason than it finally put to bed the idea that you need to choose between investing ethically and investing for performance. But where next for ESG? In this podcast, sponsored by BMO Global Asset Management, FTAdviser digital editor Damian Fantato takes a look at what the future might hold for these mandates. He is joined by Keith Balmer and Simon Holmes, portfolio managers at BMO, and David Macdonal...
Jul 07, 2021•37 min
Private equity interest in adviser platforms has continued to grow over the past year or so. Recently Novia, James Hay and Parmenion have all been bought by private equity firms and according to analysis by the Lang Cat, the proportion of platform assets owned by private equity has gone up from 2 per cent in 2016 to 15 per cent in 2021. Meanwhile life companies, which have traditionally owned platforms, have fallen from 55 per cent to 17 per cent over the same time period. So what does this mean...
Jul 02, 2021•38 min
The steep rise in popularity of sustainable investment solutions has led to a similar rise in valuations in many of the qualifying asset classes. On top of this many of the companies which address environmental or social problems tend to be technology businesses - which are more attractive for their growth characteristics rather than for their value. In this special episode of the FTAdviser Podcast, sponsored by Schroders, special projects editor David Thorpe talks to a panel of experts about wh...
Jun 30, 2021•40 min
The self-employed - and particularly younger gig economy workers - desperately need some solid pension solutions to help them make long-term provision for their retirement. Joining Simoney Kyriakou, senior editor for FTAdviser, are some of the pensions world’s great and good: Jamie Jenkins, director of policy and external affairs for Royal London; Jonathan Greer, head of retirement policy at Quilter; and Nigel Peaple, Director of Policy & Advocacy for the Pension and Lifetime Savings Associa...
Jun 28, 2021•27 min
Finding new clients at any time in a financial adviser’s working life can be a challenge, but imagine having to do that at the beginning of your career, at the start of the lockdown last year. This week, deputy features editor Ima Jackson-Obot talks to Emma Prince, an adviser at Quilter Financial Advisers, who previously worked in banking, and James Wallace from David James Wealth, a former pensions lawyer, about their first year as financial advisers - which happened to coincide with a global p...
Jun 25, 2021•37 min
This week the FTAdviser Podcast speaks to Keith Richards, the chief executive of the Personal Finance Society, who will be standing down at the end of this month after nearly nine years in the role. During this time he was involved in the Financial Advice Market Review process, he established the PFS's pro-bono advice schemes and helped set up the European Financial Planning Association. He joins FTAdviser digital editor Damian Fantato to discuss his time at the PFS and what comes next for the o...
Jun 18, 2021•23 min
This FTAdviser In Focus podcast aims to do two things: to look at the reason why investment trusts have proved to be good income plays for pension investors, and to understand why the investment trust universe can provide sustainable long-term returns. Joining Simoney Kyriakou, senior editor of FTAdviser, on this podcast is Annabel Brodie-Smith, communications director for the Association of Investment Companies; Tim Morris, financial adviser at Russell & Co; and Simon Clements, manager of t...
Jun 14, 2021•35 min
The government is looking to make it mandatory for providers to issue simpler statements for certain defined contribution pension schemes used as part of auto-enrolment. But as the proposals stop short of making providers include costs and charges, there still remains disparity across the industry. This week reporter Amy Austin is joined by Claire Trott, head of pensions strategy at St James’s Place, and Jessica List, pensions technical manager at Curtis Banks, to discuss the impact of these pro...
Jun 11, 2021•20 min
Property investment - be it buy-to-let or commercial property funds - has had a rough time over the past few years. Questions over the liquidity not just of pure bricks and mortar but also issues with daily dealing property unit trusts have caused a lot of concern to investors. There have been fund suspensions following the Brexit vote in 2016 and then again in 2020 as Covid bit into market valuations. And there has been so much tax twiddling that buy-to-let as an investment has become unattract...
Jun 07, 2021•34 min
The Financial Conduct Authority has published proposals for what it calls a "new consumer duty" which it says will set clearer and higher expectations for firms' standards of care towards consumers. The regulator has said it is concerned about firms providing information which is misleading or difficult to understand, and products or services which don't represent value. It says it wants firms to ask themselves 'would I be happy if I were treated like this?' or 'would I recommend this service to...
Jun 04, 2021•19 min
Victims of defined benefit transfer misadvice are facing a double whammy when it comes to compensation calculations. According to campaigners supporting those who have been found by the regulators and compensatory bodies to have been wrongly advised to transfer out, not only do they face wildly differing levels of compensation, depending on when the calculations are carried out, but they also have to bear all the investment risk themselves. This FTAdviser In Focus podcast looks at why the calcul...
Jun 01, 2021•35 min
Mark Carney, the former governor of the Bank of England, famously said open-ended funds which invest in illiquid assets are "built on a lie". This has been particularly evident with property funds, which have been forced to open and close themselves to redemptions repeatedly over the past few years, first in response to Brexit and then because of the coronavirus pandemic. To fix this this the Financial Conduct Authority has proposed a new type of fund: the long-term asset fund, which have "liqui...
May 28, 2021•27 min
Joe Biden has now marked more than 100 days of his term as President of the United States. While he has been a lot quieter on Twitter than his predecessor, that is not for a lack of activity. President Biden has signed a $1.9tn stimulus package, put together a $2tn package of infrastructure spending and unveiled a $1.8tn package of reforms on issues such as healthcare and labour laws. By common consensus, Biden is governing more radically than he campaigned. So what does this mean for investors ...
May 21, 2021•25 min
One of the clichés of the 21st century is to say data is the new oil but, like a lot of clichés, there's a kernel of truth in there struggling to come out. Indeed companies like Facebook have turned data into an awful lot of money and an awful lot of controversy. But what does this mean for advisers? How can they put the data they hold to good use to improve the service they offer? And what are the pitfalls? This week FTAdviser digital editor Damian Fantato is joined by Nick Eatock, chief execut...
May 14, 2021•24 min
Exceptionally low interest rates, a high level of economic uncertainty and elevated valuations across multiple asset classes have combined with the Covid-19 pandemic to make this a tricky time for all investors, but particularly for those looking for an income. Many companies cut their dividends as they faced the uncertainty of the pandemic, with Shell cutting its dividend for the first time since the Second World War. Overall, UK dividends fell by 54 per cent between April and June. This week F...
May 07, 2021•23 min
The government has said it will be reviewing the pension advice allowance - which was introduced following the Financial Advice Market Review to help close the advice gap - after most major providers said they either didn't offer it or saw little or no interest. Pensions minister Guy Opperman has admitted the allowance, currently set at £1,500 over three years, was "too low to get an efficacious outcome" and said he was now working with HM Treasury to see if it could be improved. This week repor...
Apr 30, 2021•17 min
Millions of Britons are being affected by "ill-thought-out rules, which have come into force for the private sector. Whether these are freelancers, concerned about how the rule might be assessed, or businesses worried about how they assess the tax status of every freelance contractor they hire, IR35 has posed problems for both advisers and their clients. Joining Simoney Kyriakou, senior editor of FTAdviser, to talk about what the new rules mean for contractors, clients and for advice firms thems...
Apr 27, 2021•30 min
Earlier this year the Financial Conduct Authority announced plans to review the controversial 10 per cent drop rule, which was introduced by Mifid II in 2018 and means clients must be informed when their portfolios drop by 10 per cent or more. The rule has been suspended since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic due to increased market volatility, a suspension which the FCA has said will continue until the end of 2021. But now the UK has left the European Union, what should the FCA do about t...
Apr 23, 2021•21 min
