Financial Advisor articles from April 2006

Financial Advisor archives from April 2006

Stamp duty move good but 'not good enough'.
April 6, 2006... THE Council of Mortgage Lenders has welcomed the chancellor's decision to raise the threshold for stamp duty liability. However, analysts have said that the rise still fails to take into account the house price inflation over the past...

Tech to make mortgage life less rubbish for IFAs.
April 6, 2006... Some 10 years ago, the only technology available to mortgage brokers were sourcing systems that were updated less than frequently. At best, these tables saved time trawling through endless reams of lenders' product sheets. Thankfully,...

Lies, damn lies and statistics.
April 6, 2006... THE CASUAL observer could be forgiven for speculating that a widely predicted housing market plateau seems to have been short lived if recent British Bankers Association figures, showing record lending in February, are anything to go by. ...

A&L -" alone and an easy target?
April 6, 2006... It looks as if Alliance & Leicester has now become a bid target. It has so far evaded being taken over by some of the larger banks, holding its own as a medium-sized player against the giants of the banking world and avoiding the ignominy of...

How to get it right so that the regulator need not ring twice.
April 6, 2006... THIS is a controversial statement but I always preferred the 1981 film version of The Postman Always Rings Twice. This is the one with Jack Nicholson and Jessica Lange getting hot and steamy in the kitchen of an all-American diner. I know...

I love you, you pay me rent.
April 6, 2006... IT was obvious through most of the second half of last year that the demand for buy-to-let mortgages was very strong. But the publication by the Council of Mortgage Lenders of data consolidating the figures of all the buy-to-let lenders...

Benefits of being in the last gang in town.
April 6, 2006... Mutuality is never far from the headlines. There are many who wholeheartedly support the philosophy behind running a business in this way, while there are those who believe that mutuality is an old- fashioned, outdated idea which has no place...

The writing is now on the wall.(retirement planning)
April 6, 2006... WHAT would you rather have? A gold bar or a pile of bricks? There was a day when that would have been easy to answer, but today is not that day. Property is becoming increasingly sacred. Everyone's got his stake, from investment funds to...

Time to put an end to the witch hunts.
April 6, 2006... THERE has been so much written in the past few months about payment protection insurance it has all become a little confusing. Most of what has been written has been very negative, indeed dangerously negative -" witch-hunt proportions even...

Scot Life faces attack over charge claim.(Brief article)
April 6, 2006... A row has erupted between a Manchester adviser and Scottish Life over AGBP52,200 paid to a previous adviser that the provider is pursuing from pension scheme members. IFA firm Christian Douglas Financial Planning has claimed that members...

This is the transfer transformation.(valuation of inherited real estate)
April 6, 2006... Over the next 15 years, it is estimated that housing assets worth AGBP360bn in today's money will pass from one generation to another, the largest transfer of its kind in the UK. There are a number of key reasons for this substantial...

Trigold and GMAC deal is set to be trend-setter.
April 6, 2006... ALL lenders will follow the example set by GMAC-RFC's integration with Trigold's electronic trading centre, according to a mortgage expert. GMAC's system -" POS -" can now be accessed directly through Trigold, with client applications...

Clients made aware of provider bungling.
April 6, 2006... SERVICE from some major lenders has got so bad that brokers are now warning clients of delays. One broker has also said it may not be worth doing business with them. Gavin Tisshaw, chairman of Berkshire-based Executive Advisory Services,...

Watchdog rejigs its Arrow visits.
April 6, 2006... THE FSA has written to companies setting out how Arrow visits from the regulator will change. Arrow supervisory visits are designed to determine the risk of a company to the FSA and are used to decide how the regulator applies its...

Gartmore close to AGBP600m deal.
April 6, 2006... GARTMORE looks set to be taken over this week, according to sources close to the deal. Both Schroder and Hillman & Friedman are rumoured to be the final contenders to buy the fund management group, which has been put up for sale by...

Davy's cup runneth over.
April 6, 2006... KEN Davy, chairman of Huddersfield Town football club and SimplyBiz, had a close encounter with the World Cup last week. Mr Davy joined an audience in central London who were able to view the Jules Rimet trophy. Mr Davy said: "It was a great...

General Motors drops GMAC.
April 6, 2006... GENERAL Motors has sold its 51 per cent controlling stake in GMAC for AGBP8.1bn. The US car company offloaded its majority shareholding in GMAC to a consortium of investors led by private investment firm Cerberus Capital, Citigroup and...

New Product - BM Solutions looks to future by aiding clients' finances.
April 6, 2006... BM Solutions has announced a credit repair scheme that could see policyholders upgraded after two years with the lender. The initiative is aimed at people with adverse credit ratings but who have a proven good loan repayment history. ...

Initial Hips dash may 'lead to job cuts'.
April 6, 2006... THE demand for home information packs between June and September 2007 will require more home inspectors than ever, according to an expert. John Rattigan, compliance director for Manchester-based mortgage intermediary Cartel, said that...

New protection group from ABI.
April 6, 2006... The ABI is to combine its working parties for critical illness and income protection to reduce the overlaps between the products. The combined groups will now be known as the Association of British Insurers Protection Committee and will be...

Withers' NU exit linked to failed Pru takeover bid.
April 6, 2006... GARY Withers' sudden departure from Norwich Union Life after the collapse of the bid for Prudential has prompted speculation about the future direction of the business. Last Thursday, the nation's largest insurer revealed Mr Withers, chief...

Investors make last-minute VCT dash before relief drop.
April 6, 2006... The total funds ploughed into venture capital trusts reached a record AGBP720m as the reduction of the VCT tax break loomed. From 6 April, the tax relief for VCTs will reduce from 40 per cent to 30 per cent and investors have been eager to...

FSA leaves CF8 exam loophole.
April 6, 2006... The FSA's plans for bringing in compulsory exams for long-term care advice leave the potential for mis-selling, according to specialists. Symponia, the umbrella group for specialist LTC advisers, said the transitional arrangements for...

A constructive holiday.
April 6, 2006... A PHILANTHROPIC F&C analyst recently used her two-week holiday to build homes for families devastated by the Asian tsunami 16 months ago. Alexis Krajeski, an analyst in the fund manager's governance and socially responsible investment...

Oakwood poaches yet more from haemorrhaging HBoS.
April 6, 2006... HBoS has lost a further six members of staff, including senior management, as the exodus to rival specialist lenders continues. On Monday, it was announced that the sextet, which includes Peter Charge, director of sales for The Mortgage...

ASPs will survive Brown's IHT move -" Hornbuckle.
April 6, 2006... RUMOURS of the death of family Sipps as an effective estate planning tool have been much exaggerated, according to Hornbuckle Mitchell. Despite the chancellor's decision to impose a 40 per cent inheritance tax charge on transfers of assets...

Knowledge of pensions is growing -" Friends.
April 6, 2006... CONSUMERS are beginning to take note of industry warnings around pension saving, according to Friends Provident. The provider urged advisers to make the most of a single pension tax regime coming into force today as new research showed 35...

New Product - TMB rings change by cutting charges.
April 6, 2006... The Mortgage Business has launched a portfolio of higher lending charge-free products. The specialist lender said the range would be available exclusively through a panel of brokers, including PMPA, Ramp and Exclusive Connections. The...

ASPs face double tax blow, Skandia warns.
April 6, 2006... CHANGES to the inheritance tax treatment of alternatively secured pensions could create a tax cost of 61 per cent for some dependants, according to Skandia. Billy Mackay, pension marketing manager for Skandia, said following changes made...

Trio set to fight for supremacy over PTA.
April 6, 2006... Scottish Equitable, Bright Grey and Royal Liver unveiled details of their pension term assurance products as the insurers clashed over launch dates. In terms of product design, all three insurers will include terminal illness benefits,...

Turner's last blast is robust defence.
April 6, 2006... LORD Turner has come out with guns blazing in a vigorous defence of his report on pensions. Launching the third and final volume of his near 2000-page study, Adair Turner restated his belief that costly independent pensions advice will be...

New Product - NR deal is to offer help with the costs.
April 6, 2006... Mortgage provider Northern Rock has announced a two-year, fixed-rate deal, available through Network Data mortgage network. The Northern Rock flexible fixed-rate range of two-year mortgages will offer an interest rate of 4.89 per cent on...

Split victims to get 40% of losses back.
April 6, 2006... Victims of the split capital scandal have finally been informed of compensation arrangements that will pay back only 40 per cent of their lost money. Fund Distribution Ltd, the company set up by the FSA to handle the distribution of...

IFAs get behind commercial sector.
April 6, 2006... ADVISERS are more bullish about the prospects of commercial property as opposed to residential, according to Cordea Savills. Research conducted for the property fund manager revealed seven out of 10 IFAs believe commercial property will...

FSA gets tough over 'disclosure failures'.
April 6, 2006... THE MAJORITY of investment advisers are not giving their clients the correct information about their services at the right time, the FSA has claimed. It said more than half of the intermediary companies it surveyed were failing to follow...

BoS Mortgages moves on.
April 6, 2006... Bank of Scotland Mortgages has unveiled its new-look intermediary website. The new site promises clearer navigation, more prominent news items and new product search tools. It is now divided into seven sections; Why Choose Us? Mortgages,...

New Product - MLC offers advisers outsouring option.
April 6, 2006... Manager of managers MLC is enhancing its proposition for IFAs with a host of portfolio planning tools. MLC offers its funds through six risk-rated portfolios. Money is run by institutional managers through negotiated mandates. The new...

New Product - Bespoke rolls out tracker.
April 6, 2006... BESPOKE Financial Consulting has launched a medium-risk fund, which will track the performance of the Dow Jones AIG commodity index. The Dow Jones AIG Commodity Index tracker is the UK's first commodity tracker for private and institutional...

New Product - Invesco fund to focus on debt securities to fulfil goal.
April 6, 2006... INVESCO has announced the launch of its Invesco Euro Corporate Bond fund. The product is an offshore sub-fund of the Invesco funds umbrella, and will be a euro denominated, investment grade credit fund. The new product, to be managed...

Thinc Destini ratcheting up pressure on drive to recruit.
April 6, 2006... THINC Destini has launched a campaign to recruit specialist investment advisers. Tim Parsons, director of Thinc Destini Wealth Management, said the group was talking to authorised investment advisers who wish to conduct business with high...

PFS braces for further exits.
April 6, 2006... MORE resignations from the Personal Finance Society are to be expected because of the organisation's succession planning, according to John Ellis. Mr Ellis, public affairs director of the PFS, said the professional body was expecting as...

FSA instalment move gets Aifa thumbs up.
April 6, 2006... THE Association of IFAs has applauded the FSA's decision to reinstate the instalment option for paying fees with improved terms. The regulator last week confirmed that the facility for companies to pay their fee through instalments that was...

Ami aims to aid the little player on TCF.(Association of Mortgage Intermediaries)(treating customers fairly )(Brief article)
April 6, 2006... THE Association of Mortgage Intermediaries has launched a factsheet to aid small mortgage intermediaries comply with the treating customers fairly drive. The Ami factsheet -" addressing practical issues such as dealing with customers on a...

Chesnara finds prospects for with profits on the up.
April 6, 2006... Prospects for closed with profits funds are improving as solvency positions and strong stock market returns filtered through to annual results, according to fund operators. Closed life fund operators said that fortunes were looking up as a...

Baillie urges parents to look beyond CTF.
April 6, 2006... Parents should consider savings options other than child trust funds for children, according to independent investment management group Baillie Gifford. The call comes after the chancellor confirmed in his Budget that children with child...

New Product - 'Switched-on' AIG rejigs Active funds.
April 6, 2006... AIG Life has announced a re-shuffle of its best of breed Active Access funds platform wrapper, which will see the addition of 11 new investment funds, and the relegation of three consistent underperformers. The 11 new funds will be...

Business up for third quarter in row: study.
April 6, 2006... A sharp rise in business to consumers has driven growth in the financial sector, according to the latest Financial Services Survey. The quarterly report by the CBI and PricewaterhouseCoopers surveys banks, building societies, traders, fund...

Standard Life sets demutalisation date.
April 6, 2006... Standard Life has set the date for members to vote on demutualisation of the Edinburgh-based mutual society. A special general meeting will take place on 31 May at the Edinburgh International Conference Centre. Over the next month,...

Interbay Funding to use Dashboard to help drive commercial lending venture.
April 6, 2006... Interbay Funding has selected Dashboard Enterprises as its software provider as it prepares to launch its first commercial lending venture in the UK. The link-up with Interbay -" part of US real estate investment and mortgage finance...

New Product - Decisionsdecisions aid to ease pressure for with profits information.
April 6, 2006... Decisionsdecisions has launched a with profits analyser to help IFAs advise clients on the suitability and performance of funds. The move follows the FSA's decision to force insurers to produce information on policies on request from...

Private eq 'threat' for corp bonds.
April 6, 2006... THE DARK side of private equity deals could hit corporate bonds so badly they may never recover, claims Justin Urquhart Stewart. The managing director of Seven Investment Management said the growing number of deals being proposed where the...

New Product - GE Life in value protection offer.
April 6, 2006... GE Life is offering value protection on all its post A-Day enhanced annuities that will guarantee a lump sum on death before the age of 75. The lump sum will be the same as the initial purchase price of the annuity less the aggregate amount...

Tenet launches club for non AR advisers.
April 6, 2006... TENET has launched a mortgage, life and insurance commission club for its directly authorised advisers. Lime Direct is a service tailored for advisers who do not wish to become appointed representatives but still want access to Lime...

New Product - Clock is ticking on Coventry fixed deal.
April 6, 2006... COVENTRY Building Society has launched a fixed-rate savings bond, available for a limited period. The rate is fixed at 5.1 per cent until 31 May 2007. The minimum investment is AGBP1000 and the maximum investment is AGBP250,000 for all...

Assureweb uncovers advisers resisting taking on web's aids.
April 6, 2006... ONE out of five advisers still considers conducting business online as another complication in running their businesses, according to Assureweb. The latest findings from the annual Assureweb tech index, an independent study of 300...

Derbyshire taps IntelliFlo to smooth move to multi-tie.
April 6, 2006... DERBYSHIRE Building Society has chosen IntelliFlo to provide its front and back office technology as it moves into a multi-tie distribution model. Web-based Intelligentoffice.net has a wide range of front and back office features...

Cater Allen attacked for commission cut.
April 6, 2006... AN adviser has attacked private bank Cater Allen for terminating trail commission, despite a long standing agency agreement. Patrick Schan, IFA for east Sussex-based Alberni Independent Financial Advice, said that Cater Allen had terminated...

Kicking cancer into touch.
April 6, 2006... Marie Curie Cancer Care is holding a five-a-side football tournament for the UK business community on 11 June. The charity event, to be staged using a World Cup format, will take place at West Ham United's Upton Park stadium. All proceeds go to...

New Product - Nationwide is reducing its two-year fixed-rate home loan.
April 6, 2006... NATIONWIDE Building Society has reduced the rate on one of its two-year fixed-rate mortgages. The new rate is 4.39 per cent, down from 4.44 per cent, available on loans with a maximum 90 per cent loan-to-value. The reservation fee is...

Sipp changes 'good news for investors'.(Investor relations of financial services)(Brief article)
April 6, 2006... LAST-MINUTE changes allowing investors to hold some student property and residential syndicates in Sipps will encourage investors, according to Assetz. Draft documents released by HM Revenue & Customs clarified rules governing what can and...

Regulators bow to the Treasury on security.
April 6, 2006... Pension regulators were pressured by the Treasury to water down warnings on the security of occupational schemes, according to sources. The dispute emerged in the aftermath of the Parliamentary Ombudsman's damning verdict on the pension...

Industry left divided by Turner conclusion.
April 6, 2006... Lord Turner's final report has been greeted with mixed reactions from industry experts. Responding to Tuesday's sign-off document, the Association of IFAs said the lack of a regulated advisory role undermined the Pensions Commission's work...

A-Day dawns as IFAs receive last key details.
April 6, 2006... A-DAY has finally arrived, but as Financial Adviser went to press details of the biggest shake-up of the nation's pension regulatory system still continued to emerge. Today eight pension tax regimes were finally replaced by a single system...

IFAs called on to embrace child funds.(Brief article)
April 6, 2006... The Children's Mutual has called on IFAs to take action and embrace child trust funds on the anniversary of their introduction. More than 1.5m accounts have been opened since the scheme began, leading to a doubling in the amount of parents...

I do not want to see any player go down -" it's bad for the sector.
April 6, 2006... FINANCIAL ADVISER: How long have you been in your role and can you explain how the business is run under your management? MALCOLM STREATFIELD: I have been chief executive since January 2003 and the board appointed me into that role a year...

Sexing up financial education for the kids (and their parents).
April 6, 2006... WHEN I was a lad growing up in Norwich in the early 1970s sex was still more or less a taboo subject on the school curriculum. We were exposed to one cheaply made film on child birth, which was probably enough to put many girls off having...

Last-minute brinkmanship doesn't always work.(Investment advisers)(Brief article)
April 6, 2006... PHEW. Thank goodness that it is over. I always heave a relief at the end of the tax year knowing I will no longer be bombarded with "last chance Isa" press releases. Yet it is amazing how many complaints I receive each year from readers...

An Insider's Advantage.
April 6, 2006... As a fully integrated gossip solutions provider, Insider has long championed innovative product naming. Alas attempts to rebrand our esteemed journal as fi9scial +Visor fell on deaf ears. So it comes as good news that others are...

Deloitte is ahead of itself.
April 6, 2006... The lights are quite clearly out at Deloitte this month with the entire company being kept in the dark over vital tax dates. The worldwide consultancy group, which gives guidance on tax and financial issues, has made an embarrassing mishap...

A big drop for a donation.
April 6, 2006... ANNABELLE Mackenzie and Sarah Brewer, of GMAC-RFC, have recently raised AGBP992 by taking part in a tandem skydive for Get Kids Going charity. Despite feeling sick from the anticipation and suspense, the adrenaline finally kicked in when...

It is time to get creative.
April 6, 2006... PRESS officers were clearly bored last week, or trying to put into practice the skills they picked up during PR training on how to make a press release sound fun. Two emails that popped into Diary's inbox carried an animal theme -" the...

An end to the Eq Life affair?(Equitable Life Assurance Society)(Brief article)
April 6, 2006... IF press reports are true, a serious would-be buyer is going through the Equitable Life books with a fine tooth comb. This is good news and looks as if it will bring the mess that is the Equitable Life affair to an end. But before all is...

One-off costs blamed for Tenet's AGBP5.4m loss.
April 6, 2006... TENET has blamed one-off costs and acquisitions for its pre-tax loss of AGBP5.4m for the 17 months to 30 September. Accounts given to the Leeds-based group's shareholders last week showed Tenet was hit by a pre-tax loss of AGBP5.4m,...

Time to listen up.
April 6, 2006... SOMETIMES government ministers and their advisers can be so belligerent it beggars belief. Recently a BBC television programme painted a horrifying picture of estate agents' professional ethics. Nothing new in this, I hear you say. But,...

Reason to be greedy, none that I can see.(Practice of investment fund managers)
April 6, 2006... VISIT any wine bar in the City of London this spring and there is one tune that is being hummed by the country's investment fund managers as they zip Moet Champagne and pick over their lightly-peppered smoked salmon sandwiches. It is Ian...

The pain of indemnity commission.
April 6, 2006... THIS is another angle to the old chestnut of life office administration. Numerous authors in just about every publication known to advisers have regularly drawn attention to the problems associated with relying on indemnity commission to fund...

Bonds are down but not out.
April 6, 2006... It is not as easy as first considered to find a reliable, steady income. For many the need had previously been satisfied by choosing the highest yielding corporate bond fund and thinking that the job was done. If only it were so. If we keep...

St James's Place offers Aim Portfolio service in IHT bid.
April 6, 2006... ST James's Place has launched an Aim Portfolio service as part of a continued expansion of its inheritance tax and wealth management offering. The business has appointed Close Brothers to offer the Close IHT discretionary portfolio...

Axa Framlington weighing up 'merging UK offerings'.
April 6, 2006... FUND manager changes at Axa Framlington raised expectations that the asset manager could merge its UK growth funds and launch a Japanese smaller companies fund. In a week of upheaval, Axa Framlington confirmed that Chris Murphy, manager of...

The real danger of credit cards.
April 6, 2006... HAVE you been following the recent, rather interesting, situation of -" and get the snappy heading -" Application by R & C Commissioners to serve notice under TMA 1970 s. 20 on Financial Institutions in respect of customers with UK addresses...

New Product - UCB juices up its mortgage range.
April 6, 2006... UCB Home Loans, the specialist lender of Nationwide, has revised its maximum lending multiples on its range of buy-to-let and self- certification mortgage range. As part of the company's affordability assessment, single applicants will now...

Case of an unhappy mystery shopper.(initial disclosure document)
April 6, 2006... We are fast approaching the first anniversary since all firms had to comply with new rules on depolarisation. The depolarisation rules came into force on 1 December 2004 and firms were required to comply with the new rules by 1 June 2005,...

A tight squeeze for the figures.
April 6, 2006... As the US Federal Reserve's policy rate gets closer and closer to what most economists consider to be the neutral rate for the US economy, the underlying condition of the labour market will begin to play a crucial role in determining whether...

No revolution from Mr Brown, but no industry uprising either.
April 6, 2006... THE chancellor's 10th Budget was never going to be revolutionary -" it was always going to be a political exercise in not upsetting the masses. The newspapers looked at the first head-to-head between Gordon Brown and David Cameron over the...