Financial Advisor articles from November 2004

Financial Advisor archives from November 2004

CBI: excessive regulation is crippling financial services.(Confederation of British Industry)
November 4, 2004... THE Financial Services industry is being crippled by the weight of regulation, according to a report. The Confederation of British Industry's report on the industry -- Financial Services: Promoting a Global Champion -- suggested that the...

Aifa backing for FSA plan to attack fraud.(Association of Independent Financial Advisers)(Financial Services Authority)(Brief Article)
November 4, 2004... THE Association of Independent Financial Advisers has backed an FSA initiative tackling fraud and crime within the financial services industry. Linda Chandler, technical officer of Aifa, said the association was keen to back the policy,...

Pay and opportunities key to low employee turnover.(Brief Article)
November 4, 2004... ADVISERS are happiest in their jobs when employers are clear about their aims and pay on time. Research from the Recruitment Confidence Index from the Cranfield School of Management found that nearly half of employers think pay and...

London-based IFA claims upturn in business and confidence.(Independent Fiancial Adviser)(Brief Article)
November 4, 2004... HIGH interest rates and the deluge of regulation have not hampered the London IFA industry, according to an IFA. Jock Cassidy, managing director of London-based IFA Ashley Law, said his firm's business had increased by about 15 per cent...

S&P confirms slump in life insurance numbers.(Standard & Poor)
November 4, 2004... THE shrinking number of life insurers has been reflected by Standard & Poor's latest report on the market. The rating's agency's report on life insurers confirmed last year's prediction that the market would become more concentrated as it...

The pitfalls of staff who work from home.
November 4, 2004... QI run a mail order delivery clothing firm and I was recently approached by a few members of staff who were inquiring about the potential of working from home. What are the implications of allowing this to take place? Additionally, could you...

Tough week ends with a galloping good time.
November 4, 2004... Monday I arrived in the office 10 minutes earlier than normal -- there were no traffic jams, probably because it is half-term. The day started off with a meeting with the other advisers to discuss the week ahead. Afterwards I went...

New Product - Nvesta tracks the globe.(Brief Article)
November 4, 2004... Two new structured products from Nvesta will offer exposure to indices from the UK, US, Europe and Japan. The first product, the Secure Tracker Plan 6, gives 105 per cent growth of the FTSE 100 while securing capital. The second...

BGI bags top spot in Isa league table.(Barclays Global Investors Ltd.)(Brief Article)
November 4, 2004... BARCLAYS Global Investors has retained top spot in the Morningstar Isa league table. BGI had an average Isa rating of 4.14 stars out of five compared with second-placed Artemis's score of 4.13. Nick Wells, product and communications...

Work and save more to fund retirement.
November 4, 2004... WORKING longer and saving harder could help relieve the pensions crisis, according to an ABI public survey. Of the 2566 people who were questioned by YouGov for the Association of British Insurer's The State of the Nation's Savings 2004,...

New award for mortgage brokers recognises work.(Brief Article)
November 4, 2004... THIS year saw the launch of an award for the best mortgage broker in the industry. Sponsored by The Mortgage Alliance, it was won by Sarah Gascoine of Alexander Hall. Coming in second was Mike Duffy of Mortgageforce, while in third place...

Regulator promises minimal changes to accounting rules.(Financial Services Authority)(Brief Article)
November 4, 2004... THE FSA has agreed to limit changes to its rules on accounting standards. The pledge was made in its latest consultation paper on the international accounting standards, published earlier this week. Reflecting the introduction of the...

Insurers need to reassess life expectancy or lose out.
November 4, 2004... THE underestimation of people's longevity is one of the biggest threats to future pension provision, according to a leading actuary. In a presentation to the Institute of Actuaries last week, Stephen Richards, head of mortality risk for...

New Product - Macro approach to Britannic fund.(Britannic Asset Management)(Brief Article)
November 4, 2004... BRITANNIC'S new hedge fund will use an innovative macro approach based on its sector allocation model. Britannic Asset Management's first hedge fund, called the World Markets fund, is a Cayman Islands-based fund. James Smith, chief...

Carby quits after boardroom row.(four board members from Inter-Alliance have resigned)
November 4, 2004... FOUR Inter-Alliance board members have resigned from the recently merged company after just three weeks with Millfield. Keith Carby, former chairman and chief executive of Inter-Alliance, and Michael Burne, legal director, quit on Monday...

Sesame formalises user group meetings.
November 4, 2004... SESAME has set up a number of specialist user groups to help with problems such as regulation and generating business. Formalising a system that has been operating for several years, the network gathers together groups of its members in...

New Product - First moots own VCT for market.(Venture Capital Trust)(Brief Article)
November 4, 2004... FIRST State Investments has mooted the idea of bringing a venture capital trust to the market in January. The asset manager is liaising with IFAs to gauge the level of support there is for new VCTs. The VCT smaller companies fund...

Entry charges detract from property fund.
November 4, 2004... INVESTMENT adviser Baronworth has questioned the appeal of Arlington Property Investors' new UK commercial property fund. The Arlington UK Balanced Property fund is the first to come from the company, which was formed in May through a...

10m migrants needed to fund state pension.(UK would need 10m more migrant workers to maintain the state pension scheme)(Brief Article)
November 4, 2004... THE UK would need 10m more migrant workers before 2025 to maintain the state pension scheme. Mathematicians at the Cass Business School in the City of London said the migrant workers' national insurance contributions were needed to ensure...

NU shows slow growth buoyed by bond sales surge.(Norwich Union PLC)(Brief Article)
November 4, 2004... A SURGE in bond sales helped Norwich Union report a year-on-year rise in sales through intermediaries. During the first three quarters of the year, sales of the Aviva-owned life office through advisers rose 9 per cent. Norwich Union...

Sector's finest come together to celebrate.( Financial Adviser Sales Awards at The Brewery)
November 4, 2004... THE great and good of the tied sales sector gathered in the City last week to celebrate the best among them. Names, both big and small, came together for the Financial Adviser Sales Awards at The Brewery. Senior management from...

Famous names drop into relegation zone.
November 4, 2004... HOUSEHOLD name investment companies have been relegated from the Chelsea Financial Services list. According to the London-based IFA's quarterly investment report, funds from leading companies such as Fidelity, Gartmore, M&G and Aegon have...

Tax service pledges to open up business.
November 4, 2004... IFAS can use a new online service to tap into the growing market for tax planning services, according to Vantis. The taxation services provider has put together TaxCracker, which includes an online tax questionnaire that enables IFAs to...

Employers 'must pay more'.(employers will be made to play a bigger part in encouraging pension )
November 4, 2004... EMPLOYERS will be made to play a bigger part in encouraging pension take-up, the government has said. Speaking at the Association of British Insurers' third annual saver summit -- The State of the Nation's Savings -- in London this week,...

Interest rates rises fail to rouse saving.(Brief Article)
November 4, 2004... FIVE interest rate rises in 12 months have failed to fuel saving, according to Barclays Bank. Barclays revealed that the average amount being saved by consumers in the UK fell this year. It claimed the shortfall in savings could leave...

SMEs back pensions in spite of anxieties.(Small and medium sized companies are committed to pensions provision )(Brief Article)
November 4, 2004... SMALL and medium-sized companies are committed to pensions provision despite fears of the financial burden, according to Axa. Of the 200 SMEs surveyed by Axa, 56 per cent claimed they were becoming increasingly concerned about the financial...

TMB takes online route for all client applications.(Brief Article)
November 4, 2004... TMB will now accept all applications for its products online. The company made the announcement following the earlier statement that it was returning to the market on a limited basis. The news means that the company has claimed that it is...

Axa offers guaranteed rates.(Brief Article)
November 4, 2004... AXA will offer guaranteed rates for its critical illness cover within protection range when it launches in November. Final details of the Axa protection range have not yet been completed, but it will comprise a menu-based proposition, with...

Top qualification aimed at compliance specialists.(Securities and Investment Institute has launched a high-level qualification for compliance specialists)
November 4, 2004... The Securities and Investment Institute has launched a high-level qualification for compliance specialists. The diploma in investment compliance is aimed at compliance specialists who wish to gain formal recognition for the knowledge and...

First Active to offer a second proc fee.
November 4, 2004... FIRST Active, the newly resuscitated brand owned by RBS, is offering an unusual deal on its proc fees. It will pay out another proc fee if the intermediary switches the client to another First Active product once their initial deal with the...

Direct Line returns with M-Day offers.(Brief Article)
November 4, 2004... DIRECT Line has come back into the market with a raft of new deals to coincide with M-Day, scheduled for this week. The lender had closed to new business earlier in the year after deciding that it needed the opportunity to get its systems...

Clerical Medical has A-Day in its sights.(Clerical Medical and General Life Assurance Society has published a help pack for advisers )(Brief Article)
November 4, 2004... CLERICAL Medical has published a help pack for advisers preparing their client's finances for pension simplification in April 2006. The HBoS-owned life office claims that it is not too soon for advisers to identify customers who may benefit...

Clients to rate IFAs' work on new website.(Independent financial advisers)
November 4, 2004... AN interactive low-cost lead-generation website that allows clients to rate advisers for quality of service was launched last week. The founder of Professional Directory said that including a feedback facility would help to encourage...

4000 sign up for Exchange database.(Brief Article)
November 4, 2004... MORE than 4000 IFAs have signed up to the new client database on The Exchange. The database, launched two months ago, automatically transfers client information on Exweb into all quotation and new business submissions so that it only needs...

Mis-selling claims to follow Serps ruling.
November 4, 2004... PENSION advisers should hold tight for the next mis-selling scandal, following a landmark ruling on Serps by the Financial Ombudsman. This is according to London-based law firm Reynolds Porter Chamberlain, which claimed the FOS's decision...

Sesame is top of the IFA tree.(Brief Article)
November 4, 2004... SESAME is ranked number one in Financial Adviser/Matrix Data's list of the Top 100 IFAs, displacing Bradford & Bingley after three years. The Misys-owned network registered a turnover of AGBP335m in the past financial year, and while this...

New team seeks a child trust Bounty.(Family Assurance Friendly Society)(Brief Article)
November 4, 2004... BOUNTY and Family Investments have become the latest distributor and provider to team up to offer a stakeholder child trust fund. Less than a fortnight after Barclays announced it intended to offer a child trust fund, the parenting...

Borrowers double up on other deals.(Brief Article)
November 4, 2004... ALMOST 80 per cent of mortgage borrowers take out at least one protection or investment product at the same time. New research from IFA Promotion revealed that UK borrowers take out an average 1.3 additional financial products on top of...

Nationwide reports fall in house prices.
November 4, 2004... NATIONWIDE has continued the trend of announcing a weakened housing market, saying prices had fallen for the first time in three years. The UK's largest building society has cuts its annual house price inflation forecast by 3 percentage...

Enhanced annuities avoided by advisers.(Brief Article)
November 4, 2004... ADVISERS are avoiding selling enhanced annuities because they believe the underwriting process is too complex. GE Life said that up to 40 per cent of annuity purchasers qualify for enhanced rates but less than one in 10 buy one with a...

Sharp rise in use of multi-manager.(use of multi-manager products )(Brief Article)
November 4, 2004... TWO-THIRDS of IFAs have significantly increased their use of multi-manager products in the past year, according to Fidelity. The majority of respondents to a survey of IFAs commissioned by Fidelity and conducted by SurveyMonkey.com, said...

Campaign warns of DIY will packs.(Do it yourself)(Brief Article)
November 4, 2004... IFAS should ensure their clients avoid using 'DIY' will kits, according to Remember a Charity. The organisation -- a combined effort by 130 charities to encourage people to leave charitable legacies in their will -- found that 30 per cent...

Attraction of strong network brings more IFA firms to Tenet.(Brief Article)
November 4, 2004... TENET has recorded a sharp rise in advisers joining its network. In the past two months Tenet claimed it had increased its number of advisers by 10 per cent. This excludes its recent acquisition of 2500-strong network, Premier Connections....

EU rules on agenda at Paris conference.(Association of Private Client Investment Managers national conference)(European Union)(Brief Article)
November 4, 2004... THE Association of Private Client Investment Managers national conference kicks off in Paris on Friday. Delegates at the Hotel Inter-Continental could look forward to a Thursday evening reception aboard the Bateaux Parisiens, before getting...

Clear guidance on way from the FSA.(Financial Services Authority)(Brief Article)
November 4, 2004... THE FSA looks on course to deliver straightforward guidance on how standards for treating customers fairly should be applied. This is according to Justin Harper, accreditation consultant at Raising Standards award body the Pensions...

Ruling protects the critically ill.(Brief Article)
November 4, 2004... AN ombudsman ruling that insurers cannot use clauses to wriggle out of paying critical illness cover has been welcomed. The Financial Ombudsman Service said that if a critical illness policy promised a payout if the claimant could not work...

Charcol sees bright future for landlords.(Brief Article)
November 4, 2004... THE buy-to-let market may have much brighter prospects than has previously been suggested. According to a report by mortgage broker Charcol, there is likely to be a sharp rise in the number of properties bought to let, with landlords...

New Product - Insinger makes Astute move.(Brief Article)
November 4, 2004... INSINGER de Beaufort is to combine an income fund with a fund of hedge funds. The two funds are to be combined within the manager-of-manager provider's new Astute Portfolio. The new fund will be split 70 per cent income fund and 30 per...

New rules may hide bad sellers.(Brief Article)
November 4, 2004... LENDERS are worried that regulation will make it easier to mis-sell financial products, according to a survey. Institutions are concerned that the new mortgage regime will have a big impact on the sales force. According to a survey by...

Mortgage lending slows.(Brief Article)
November 4, 2004... FRESH evidence of a slowdown in mortgage lending has emerged with new figures from the British Bankers Association. Gross mortgage lending reached AGBP16.3bn during September, amounting to the first year-on-year fall since November 2000....

Building societies set for consolidation.
November 4, 2004... THE head of the Building Societies Association has predicted that there may be more mergers in the building society sector. Speaking at a hearing of the parliamentary all-party group for building societies and financial mutuals, Adrian...

Same-sex couples to have pension rights enshrined.
November 4, 2004... CAMPAIGNERS have welcomed government plans to allow same sex couples the same pensions benefits as married ones. Last week, the Department for Work and Pensions said the Civil Partnership Bill had been amended to allow civil partners who...

BIA members offered coaching programme.(Berkeley Independent Advisers)(Brief Article)
November 4, 2004... BERKELEY Independent Advisers is launching a coaching programme to help its members lift their incomes. PracticeBuilder Programme, which is in partnership with international business coach Anthony Morris is a bespoke one-year course to...

St James's Place shows strong fund growth.(St. James's Place Capital PLC)(Brief Article)
November 4, 2004... ST JAMES'S Place increased funds under management by 10 per cent over the past nine months. Its results for the nine months to 30 September showed the wealth management services division grew funds to AGBP8.7bn. Gross fees generated were...

Baddon signs up for Deloitte & Touche actuarial life practice.(appointments)
November 4, 2004... General Deloitte & Touche has announced the appointment of Richard Baddon to its actuarial life practice. Mr Baddon joins as partner from consultancy and actuarial firm Milliman where he was involved in the majority of UK life...

Micklewright joins Canada Life.(Colin Micklewright becomes manager of business development)(Brief Article)
November 4, 2004... Colin Micklewright has joined Canada Life (Group Risk) as manager of business development for group income protection. He will be responsible for growing this part of the business by raising the profile of the product range among...

Chaotic start to FSA regulation.(Financial Services Authority)(Brief Article)
November 4, 2004... A NUMBER of authorised mortgage advisers had their names left off the FSA's website as the City watchdog launched its new regulatory regime. The omissions meant that the advisers could not undertake advice, since a listed firm reference...

B&B announces single-tie agreement with L&G.(Bradford & Bingley will transfer about 200 wealth advisers to Legal & General)
November 4, 2004... BRADFORD & Bingley has announced a single-tie with L&G, signalling the transferral of about 200 wealth advisers to the life company. Under the agreement, which will to come into effect on 17 January, the former B&B wealth advisers will be...

Clarion in AGBP45m buy-out.(Clarion Events has been bought )(Brief Article)
November 4, 2004... THE company behind Mortgage Business Expo has completed a management buy-out from parent Earls Court & Olympia group. Clarion Events has been bought out for AGBP45m. The MBO has been led by Clarion managing director Simon Kimble and has...

Rich force product change.(Brief Article)
November 4, 2004... HIGH net-worth investors hungry for diversified products will force change in the industry, according to research. The sixth annual McKinsey report into the European and UK fund management industry revealed that while profit margins and...

Skandia accused of misleading terms.(Skandia (U.K.) Insurance PLC)
November 4, 2004... A MIDLANDS IFA has accused Skandia of misleading commission terms on its guaranteed pension fund. Skandia has been applying a 25 per cent discount -- akin to a market value reduction penalty -- on renewal commission for its guaranteed with...

Merrill Lynch acquires Mortgages plc.(Brief Article)
November 4, 2004... MORTGAGES plc, the non-conforming lender, has been sold to investment bank Merrill Lynch for an undisclosed sum. The widely anticipated move brings Merrill Lynch into line with Lehman Brothers, which owns UK non-conforming lenders SPML and...

Fraud crackdown introduced by FSA.( Financial Services Authority)
November 4, 2004... THE FSA plans to carry out more checks to make sure advisers, providers and banks are tackling fraud. Philip Robinson, financial crime sector leader for the FSA, said the present level of fraud in the financial services sector was far too...

Tory grandees join IFAs in a search for the good old days.(Independent Financial Adviser's)
November 4, 2004... THERE are times in all our lives when we like to wallow in nostalgia. Some of us even like to pretend that we still live in an idealised past, even if that version of the past never really existed. It was John Major, the former prime...

Further questions over terms of LIA/Sofa merger.(Society Of Financial Advisers)(Life Insurance Association)(Brief Article)
November 4, 2004... A few more e-mails continue to trickle in about the merger vote between Sofa and the LIA. One, from Robert Lockie of Bloomsbury Financial Planning, concerns the fact that I "appear to seek to lump in the Institute of Financial Planning" to...

Kerry's financial backing.(Brief Article)
November 4, 2004... Prime Minister Tony Blair may have given US President George W Bush his own vote of confidence, but it would seem that the UK financial services industry has not. Over 1000 senior financial services executives gathered in Paris at the end...

A difference of opinion.(Brief Article)
November 4, 2004... THERE really is no rest for the wicked, as Tory MP Oliver Letwin (above right) discovered at last week's Aifa Awards. The shadow chancellor was hosting the evening, held at Drapers' Hall in London when he found himself facing heckles during...

FOS mediation fees set, but levy rejected.(Financial Ombudsman Service )(Brief Article)
November 4, 2004... FEES for companies offering mortgage or insurance mediation for the 2004-05 tax year have been set. Following consultation with the industry the Financial Ombudsman Service has decided not to set a levy for companies doing mortgage or...

Only the best will do...(Brief Article)
November 4, 2004... As seasoned financial services practitioners will know, the pre-Christmas season can be an endless string of awards dinners and office parties. The PR profession is itself responsible for a good deal of seasonal champagne quaffing, so much...

Door still shut to product churning.(Independent Financial Adviser )(Brief Article)
November 4, 2004... LEGAL & General has allayed fears that its single-tie with Bradford & Bingley will open the door for churning of products. When the deal between the IFA and provider is completed, existing Bradford & Bingley clients will become clients of...

Frivolous spending from the over-50s.(Brief Article)
November 4, 2004... FIFTYSOMETHINGS are as frivolous as their thirtysomethings when it comes to saving and spending, according to a Lloyds TSB 50+ survey. The survey found that 27 per cent of those over 50 saved compared with 29 per cent of thirtysomethings....

Canada Life gears up for major assault on European markets.(Interview)
November 4, 2004... FINANCIAL ADVISER: After Great West Lifeco bought Canada Life in 2003, what was the immediate effect on the working model of the business? ALAIN WOLFFE: Great West Life Assurance has a successful business model and endeavours to become...

Second time lucky?(Independent Financial Adviser)(Brief Article)
November 4, 2004... WHAT is going on at IFA Promotion? The new media services directory has some bizarre details about IFAs' private lives. Insider is not quite sure whether Steve Martell, IFA with Benson McGarvey, wanted the world to know that he has 'one...

Regulation needs work.(Brief Article)
November 4, 2004... IT IS now four days since the new regime regulating mortgages came into force. In case we become too concerned about the new business models we put in place to comply with the new standards -- and the others expected to land on our...

Salesforce salute.(Brief Article)
November 4, 2004... IN THIS issue of Financial Adviser we celebrate the brightest, most hard-working and thorough of the direct sales and support staff in life offices; those men and women who every day face seeing their jobs outsourced to some faraway land. ...

We need IFAs more than FSA regulators.(Independent Financial Adviser)(Financial Services Authority)
November 4, 2004... AT THE end of last month, the independent financial adviser sector lost yet another of its ever-shrinking fraternity. It waved goodbye to Brian Lentz, colourful owner of Hertfordshire-based Portfolio Insurance Consultancy & Mortgage Brokers....

Tame the demands of your IT.
November 4, 2004... AS WE are all too well aware, the financial services industry is changing. New regulations, global markets and increasingly high customer expectations are the catalysts for change, causing upheaval for many financial services firms. As a...

Playing politics with the economy.
November 4, 2004... WITH the US presidential election campaign dragging out for months before finally reaching a conclusion this week, investors were anxious about the outcome, without really knowing why. They did not know who would win, they did not know...

Pension lessons from the past.(retirement age)
November 4, 2004... ADAIR Turner's report on the looming pensions crisis raises three big questions: why are British pensions the worst in the developed world? Why are the British so ill-informed about pensions? And why do we save so little for our old age? ...

Keeping everything covered.(retirement age and benefits)
November 4, 2004... THE report by the Pensions Commission, headed by Adair Turner, the former head of the Confederation of British Industry, reported that stark choices face millions of working people if they are not to spend their retirement in poverty. It...

Tough times lead to change.(Independent Financial Adviser)
November 4, 2004... THE IFA industry has continued to go through major change over the past year, as is clearly demonstrated by considerable jostling at the top of the table of the best and biggest advisory firms. The sector has had to cope with the looming...

Jail looms for swindling adviser.(Independent Financial Adviser)(Brief Article)
November 4, 2004... A SWINDON-based IFA who swindled almost AGBP1m out of a Welsh miners' pension fund is facing jail. Colin Stanton, of Dropmore Road in Burnham in Buckinghamshire, rocked backwards and forwards in distress in the dock at Reading Crown Court...

New faces dominate the top 10.(financial services)
November 4, 2004... 1THIS year's number one IFA, Sesame, is only 20 months old, but has gone through massive change since its inception, according to Martin Davies, the firm's commercial director. He said: "When Misys bought the five original networks, which...

Withdrawal now is poor advice.
November 4, 2004... Rather later than I expected, we have finally heard from the IMA that there has been a net withdrawal of money from Peps and Isas. Why is this later than I expected? Because I would have expected net withdrawals of funds in around January 2003,...