Financial Advisor articles from October 2004

Financial Advisor archives from October 2004

Eldon says offshore call centres good for IFAs.(Brief Article)
October 7, 2004... OFFSHORE financial service call centres are in the interest of UK-based IFAs, Eldon Financial Planning said. John Harwood, who works as office manager and deals with administration at the Durham-based firm, said although speaking to...

Expert says advisers need to wise up to benefits of e-commerce.(Brief Article)
October 7, 2004... IFAs are still failing to recognise the benefits of e-commerce when processing client invoices, according to the Better Payment Practice Group. Nick Bojas, member of the BPPG and senior policy adviser with the Confederation of British...

Sherwins buy is good for Savills.(Brief Article)
October 7, 2004... Upmarket broker Savills Private Finance has made its first acquisition since being set up in 1997. The broker has bought Sherwins Mortgage Service, a specialist in affordable housing. The move marks Savills' first foray into the market...

Booklet leads drive to publicise ombudsman's role.(Brief Article)
October 7, 2004... IFAs who have had no dealings with the Financial Ombudsman Service are to receive a booklet outlining the organisation's work. The FOS has launched a publication produced specifically for financial services companies that generally have...

Jiver advocates pensions over more shoes.
October 7, 2004... MONDAY Started with the weekly sales meeting. Thirty minutes on how are we doing, what are we doing, and what we doing about it. Checked e-mails, ditched the inevitable junk, responded to those I could and filed the rest for later. Cleared...

Stop thieves from reducing your profits.
October 7, 2004... Qmy IT department is concerned about theft in the workplace. As this is an expensive problem for my business, is there anything I can do to tackle it in order to prevent a repetition? Additionally, I would like to know what precautions and...

Mondrian targets IFA sales after management buy-out.(Brief Article)
October 7, 2004... Mondrian Investment Partners will lead a sustained push in to the IFA market after its management buy-out, according to the company. Mondrian was formed after the Delaware Investment Partners and private equity firm Hellman & Friedman...

Free price listing from Financial Express.(Brief Article)
October 7, 2004... Fund data collector Financial Express has teamed up with the Investment Management Association to launch a fund price listings service. Advisers and investors can use the free service to look up the latest daily fund price information for...

Inter-Alliance/Millfield merger gets green light.
October 7, 2004... Nearly nine months after potential merger talks were first announced, Inter-Alliance has finally got a deal. The suitor may have changed and Inter-Alliance may have been forced to jump through numerous regulatory hoops, but this week, the...

Insurers' body seeks new director general.
October 7, 2004... The Association of British Insurers is recruiting for a new director general. Mary Francis, director general of the financial services industry trade body, announced last week that she would step down in March 2005. Alan Leaman, head...

Pru will reward healthy clients.(Brief Article)
October 7, 2004... Prudential has launched its private medical insurance business, claiming to be the first to link premiums with policyholder efforts to stay healthy. PruHealth will issue vitality points to policyholders as rewards for making the effort to...

September saw low rise in house prices.
October 7, 2004... House price growth was subdued in September with affordability most stretched in the north and north west, according to Nationwide. The building society's latest quarterly survey of house prices revealed prices grew by just 0.2 per cent in...

IFA blasts FOS in over-funding case.
October 7, 2004... AN adviser is challenging the ombudsman after he was ordered to compensate a client whose pension is overfunded. Arthur Childs, managing director of IFA Arch Financial Planning, said he had no choice but to repay the client's contributions...

ONS makes AGBP16bn pensions tax error.
October 7, 2004... PENSIONS received AGBP3.1bn less in tax relief payments in 2003 than was previously estimated because of a mistake by the Office of National Statistics. Tax rebates over five years to 2002-2003 were AGBP15.9bn less than expected, according...

New Product - Onshore launch with 80 stocks.(Brief Article)
October 7, 2004... JP Morgan Fleming Asset Management has launched an onshore continental European fund. Ajay Gambhir and James Elliott, who run an offshore European fund and manage the AGBP219.6m UK Dynamic fund, will manage the new fund. It will hold...

Higher state pension needed by women.(Brief Article)
October 7, 2004... MORE time needs to be spent addressing the needs of women without any pension provision. Dr Jay Ginn, of the University of Surrey said research showed the debate about whether to make pensions compulsory missed the point. "For women,...

Financial services performance drops.
October 7, 2004... BUSINESS volumes, profitability and confidence in the financial services sector have fallen for the first time in 18 months. A quarterly survey by the Confederation of British Industry and PricewaterhouseCoopers revealed the performance of...

Further BTL signs of cooling.(Brief Article)
October 7, 2004... PARAGON Mortgages has underlined the perception that the buy-to-let market had come off the boil. The lender said that the typical landlord expected to grow his portfolio of rental properties by 6 per cent over the next 12 months. This...

Adaptability key to future success, Expo experts say.
October 7, 2004... ABILITY to adapt is to replace independent advice as the key to IFAs success, according to industry experts at Expo. A packed hall at the first leg of Financial Adviser Expo 2004 in Harrogate, was told depolarisation and standardisation of...

Advice to warn of Sipp residential property risks.(Brief Article)
October 7, 2004... ADVISERS must be cautious about recommending residential property be placed into a Sipp, according to Hornbuckle Mitchell. Neil Marsh, director of operations, said that although there would be a range of investments available to pension...

Supermarkets will hit IFAs which fail to differentiate themselves on quality.(Brief Article)
October 7, 2004... ASDA and Tesco look set to be the biggest threat to IFAs' protection business. This is according to Simon Moxon, regional protection sales manager for Abbey for Intermediaries, who told IFAs at Financial Adviser's Expo event that...

Claim that proc fees should be increased.(Brief Article)
October 7, 2004... PROCURATION fees for mortgage advisers should increase substantially in the coming years, according to Network Data. Richard Griffiths, managing director of Network Data, said he continued to push for providers to increase the procuration...

Job cuts a possibility, says Carby.
October 7, 2004... Keith Carby, chief executive of Inter-Alliance, has refused to rule out redundancies once his company merges with Millfield. Mr Carby, who will become chairman of the enlarged group next year, said: "That is always a possibility when two...

Consolidation years for multi-managers.(Brief Article)
October 7, 2004... THE MULTI-MANAGER market should go through a period of consolidation during the next few years, according to Fidelity Investments. James Bampton, head of intermediary sales for Fidelity Investments, said following a flood of offerings...

Breakfast brings reasons to be cheerful over global markets.(Brief Article)
October 7, 2004... INVESTMENT opportunities and the future of the global market were the theme of the DWS Investment breakfast briefing. David Chellew, senior market analyst for the company who launched Track Two at Expo on Investments, gave a positive...

Wine puts icing on cake.
October 7, 2004... IT WAS fourth time lucky at Harrogate for David Booth, an adviser with York-based Howard Broadley & Co.

Well worked euphonising.
October 7, 2004... PROBLEMS with the acoustics at the Harrogate leg of Financial Adviser's Expo meant Nick Cann had to be careful how he described his fellow panellists. Speaking as part of the panel debate on The Future of IFAs, he made sure he clarified...

Train gives up the strain.
October 7, 2004... THE unreliable rail service resulted in a mad taxi drive from York to Harrogate for Stewart Ritchie. A broken-down train meant Mr Ritchie, director of pensions development for Scottish Equitable, had to take to the road to reach Financial...

Morris reviews industry responses.(Brief Article)
October 7, 2004... SIR Derek Morris has started to trawl through the 100 responses sent into his review of the actuarial profession. At the first meeting of the independent advisory panel, which was appointed to advise Sir Derek on the conduct of his...

Treasury and Revenue ganging up on Reits.
October 7, 2004... The Treasury and Inland Revenue are resisting moves to introduce UK versions of real estate investment trusts. According to an influential report produced by the Corporation of London, the government departments are concerned about the loss...

Block investment in rentals says City.(Brief Article)
October 7, 2004... Real estate investment trusts should not invest in rented housing, according to the Corporation of London. In its report, it said that investing in housing would be "inappropriate". It said: "Investor interests are best served by Reits...

NEW PRODUCT GROWTH BOND Hesitant response to open-ended product.(Brief Article)
October 7, 2004... WESLEYAN has launched an open-ended bond that allows the investor to determine the investment length depending on prevailing market conditions. The Wesleyan Growth bond is a single premium non-qualifying unit-linked bond with the...

IFAs to receive help with tribunal forms.(Brief Article)
October 7, 2004... AN online service has been launched to help IFAs fill out complicated tribunal forms. Employment law firm Peninsula has unveiled a new online service to help employers taken to tribunal to fill in the required paperwork. By using the...

Report urges some flexibility over gains.(Brief Article)
October 7, 2004... Reits should be allowed some flexibility over what they can do with their capital gains. The Corporation report said that the property investment vehicles should be able to recycle their gains to improve the fund. The report said: "UK...

Virtual firm boosted by eight top brands.
October 7, 2004... Royal Liver Assurance has got eight of the industry's biggest IFA brands on board to use its new virtual life company. Sesame, Bankhall, Tenet, SimplyBiz, Threesixty, Lifesearch, In Partnership and Royal Liver-owned Park Row, are the first...

Professionalism is key to success.(Brief Article)
October 7, 2004... MULTI-tied and tied advisers are the same sheep in different clothing, according to investment guru Justin Urquhart Stewart. In his keynote speech at Financial Adviser's Expo event in London, Mr Urquhart Stewart said that after...

Call for advisers to control commission.(Brief Article)
October 7, 2004... Financial advisers should be in control of the remuneration process, not product providers, according to the Consumer's Association. Mick McAteer, principal policy adviser with the CA, said it was time the link between recommendation and...

Advisers praised as 13,141 ask for FSA authorisation.
October 7, 2004... THE regulator has praised advisers for their "preparedness" in the run-up to mortgage and general insurance regulation. Sarah Wilson, director of the financial services high street firms division of the FSA, told the UK Insurance and...

Asset vehicle geared for property market.(Brief Article)
October 7, 2004... IFAs looking for an easy property vehicle will benefit from a new company designed to invest in retail and commercial. The vehicle, called Asset Investments, is open to anyone with at least AGBP20,000 to invest. It has been structured...

Bad foreign call centres may see costlier deals.(Brief Article)
October 7, 2004... SUSPICIONS over the quality of outsourced sales support staff may lead providers to offer high-cost guaranteed UK-only products. The practice of offshoring call-centre support staff to countries such as India and South Africa raised...

Progress is reliant on improved services.(Brief Article)
October 7, 2004... IMPROVED service, management of customer expectations and better qualifications are needed if the financial industry is to move forward. In an interactive panel session conference delegates were able to vote instantly on selected questions....

L&H joins ranks of fixed-rate cutters.(Brief Article)
October 7, 2004... LEEDS & Holbeck has joined the ranks of lenders cutting rates on fixed-rate products. The building society's 10-year fixed-rate mortgage has now come down from 5.99 per cent to 5.74 per cent, amounting to a drop of 0.25 of a percentage...

Savings and pensions hunger needs feeding.(Brief Article)
October 7, 2004... THE insurance industry was urged to cast off its pessimistic attitude and embrace the growing appetite for savings and pensions. Henri de Castries, group chief executive office of Axa, told delegates at last week's 2004 UK Insurance and...

Schroder's Recovery fund has release date.(Brief Article)
October 7, 2004... SCHRODER is to launch its Recovery fund to the retail market on 26 November following demand from UK advisers. The fund will be run to the same specification as the highly successful Schroder Institutional fund, run by Ben Whitmore. Mr...

S&P's deal extends Amex range of wrap.
October 7, 2004... AMEX is to open its wrap platform to more IFA firms before the end of the year following a deal with Standard & Poor's. American Express Financial Services Europe confirmed that more firms are lining up to use its wrap platform, Adviser...

FSA will shadow advisers.(Brief Article)
October 7, 2004... THE FSA is planning to shadow IFAs in an attempt to debunk the idea that the regulator is a monster. Paul Rich, manager of the retail intermediaries sector of the FSA, said the City watchdog was to launch a shadow placement scheme in the...

Lender and insurer contact centres not ready for M-Day.(Brief Article)
October 7, 2004... LENDER and insurer contact centres would not be compliant without last-minute action, according to Huntswood Consulting. The regulatory and compliance specialist said many lender and insurers were unprepared for mortgage regulation after 31...

Compulsion will not work for small firms.
October 7, 2004... FORCING smaller employers to contribute towards their staff's pension scheme will not work, a leading pensions body has claimed. The Pensions Institute said research it had carried out into defined contribution, or final salary schemes, had...

Signs that rents may rise again as market hardens.
October 7, 2004... TENANTS are starting to make their way back into the rental market, according to property services group Orchard & Shipman. Over the three months to the end of August, the group, which has three branches for its lettings agency, saw a 45...

ACA says Pensions Bill has lost its way.
October 7, 2004... THE government and employers should unite to find a solution to the UK pension crisis, according to an expert. Adrian Waddingham, chairman of the Association of Consulting Actuaries, has claimed that the Pensions Bill has lost its way. ...

Record keeping may stop litigation.
October 7, 2004... ADVISERS with good records may have nothing to fear from clients who lost out by contracting out of Serps. Beachcroft Wansbroughs Consulting estimated that as many as 15m people contracted out of the state earnings related pension scheme...

EqLife inquiry report 'best hope' for redress.(Brief Article)
October 7, 2004... EQUITABLE Life policyholders should accept the findings of the Parliamentary Ombudsman as the final chapter of their fight for redress. This is according to Charles Thomson, chief executive of the mutual society, who said the Parliamentary...

McCormack takes role of B&W Mortgages MD.(Brief Article)
October 7, 2004... BRISTOL & West has appointed an insider to take over as head of Bristol & West Mortgages. Roland McCormack will take on the top job as managing director of Bristol & West Mortgages when Stewart Wright retires at the end of December. ...

European body offers PII to all members.(Brief Article)
October 7, 2004... THE only pan-European body representing IFAs from across the Continent, is to offer its members professional indemnity insurance. The European Federation of Financial Advisers and Financial Intermediaries has entered into a five-year...

FSA gets complaint from IFA investors.(Brief Article)
October 7, 2004... INVESTORS in Rickman Tooze IFA claim they have made a formal complaint to the FSA two months after it went into administration. Four investors have written to the regulator and administrators, Baker Tilly, attacking the chief executive for...

Cofunds says that its AGBP3bn assets are 'ahead of target'.
October 7, 2004... COFUNDS has AGBP3bn of assets under administration, which it hopes will allay fears of fundamental uncertainty within its business forecasts. In its consolidated financial statements for the year to 31 December 2003, the fund supermarket,...

Sesame is hit with a AGBP290,000 FSA fine.
October 7, 2004... Sesame has been fined AGBP290,000 by the FSA for not carefully monitoring one of its members' pensions unlocking business. The financial regulator handed down the fine after investigating the practices of Regal Partners Financial Planning....

Customer fee is way to stop false claims.(Brief Article)
October 7, 2004... Customers who complain should pay a refundable case fee to prevent rogue complaints, according to the Association of Private Client Investment Managers. Angela Knight, director general of Apcims, said the compensation culture was creating...

Bates proclaims star stockpicking funds.
October 7, 2004... SIXTEEN UK stockpicking funds have been proclaimed star performers for helping investors beat a flat FTSE All Share index. Over the last six years Bates Investment Services said it had identified 16 funds, eight from the UK All Companies...

Lack of confidence explains poor sales.(Brief Article)
October 7, 2004... THE Investment Management Association has claimed fund sales faltered due to lack of confidence. Although August is usually a quiet month, the IMA said fund sales figures showed an unusual lack of Isa and Pep activity. Its August...

Call to act now not later over pensions.
October 7, 2004... THE government is attempting to push the pensions issue aside until after the general election, a pensions expert claimed. Steve Bee, head of pensions strategy with Scottish Life, said last week's Labour Party Conference in Brighton had...

Let investors get help from the ombudsman.
October 7, 2004... THE FINANCIAL Ombudsman Service should take care of investment trust shareholders' complaints, according to the Association of Investment Trust Companies. Investors who buy shares in investment trusts without getting advice on the market,...

Half of mortgage brokers to sell new deals after M-Day.(Brief Article)
October 7, 2004... More than half of non-regulated mortgage intermediaries will start selling other products upon regulation, according to The Exchange. The research came with the announcement that The Exchange, part of Marlborough Stirling, is to form an...

Rent reviews bad for pension funds.(Brief Article)
October 7, 2004... A RENT review is another attack on pension funds, according to the National Association of Pension Funds. The association has hit out at government proposals for outlawing upward-only rent review clauses in property leases. In its...

Plans for communication and a better working relationship.(Interview)
October 7, 2004... FINANCIAL ADVISER: You were part of the FSA team tasked with finding solutions for the PII crisis. As far as IFAs are concerned, the situation is no better now. Why? PAUL RICH: I know it is still an issue for advisers, but that does not...

Keeping status quo is nothing to be proud of.
October 7, 2004... Whenever anyone leaves their job to move on to pastures new, the usual practice is to give them a good send-off. You can always depend on colleagues to say what a tremendous contribution he or she made to the team and how much he will be...

Merger will not just bring flat-headed members.
October 7, 2004... HENRY Gewanter, garrulous New Yorker, veteran PR man and managing director of Positive Profiles, e-mailed me to dispute my claim, with reference to the proposed LIA/Sofa merger, that "members shape organisations, not the other way round". ...

One thing on his mind.
October 7, 2004... SHAUN Godfrey, sales director of Bankhall Investment Associates, was certainly not out to make any friends within the mortgage market at FA Expo. As part of his PowerPoint presentation on the future of adviser business model opportunities, Mr...

Little confidence in critical illness.(Brief Article)
October 7, 2004... IFAs and medical insurance specialists have lost confidence in the growth potential of the critical illness protection market. According to Axa PPP's Market Outlook Survey 2004, only 43 per cent of IFAs are confident that critical illness...

Very pleasant conversation.
October 7, 2004... GUESTS at Abbey's Expo champagne reception would no doubt have been amused had they overheard a certain guest speaker talking about his experience of a pole dancing club. The gentleman in question said that, as attractive as the young lady...

Room for improvement.
October 7, 2004... IFAS really should not have any cause for concern that there will ever be reduced demand for quality advice, at least in the corporate arena anyway. This is according to one adviser who said that, on taking over a corporate client contract from...

Come undone thinking.
October 7, 2004... SPEAKING in the Practical Issues track at FA Expo, Ray Boulger, senior technical manager for Charcol, expressed his amazement at the application of the government's 'joined-up' approach to policy. The Department of Trade and Industry recently...

Somehow, it is the innocents who suffer.
October 7, 2004... FOR the past week, I have spent most of my time dealing with the rubble left by the great precipice bond mis-selling scandal. It has not been an enjoyable experience. Everyone, it seems, both good and bad, has lost out as a result of this...

Fair play for small players.(Brief Article)
October 7, 2004... IN AN address to a gathering of the great and good of financial services last week, Callum McCarthy, chairman of the Financial Services Authority, revealed that the City regulator was not enforcement-led, an issue he admitted was of growing...

Fixing death tax.(Brief Article)
October 7, 2004... TORY Treasury spokesman Oliver Letwin has already made it clear that future inheritance tax treatment is going to be high on his agenda during the forthcoming general election campaign. To add to this, it is now clear that after the house...

We owe society the wisdom of ages.
October 7, 2004... IAM sorry to say that this week's little offering follows on from last week's. I am not in the habit of writing my weekly comment in instalments, and I dislike using one week's pontificating to follow up on something in the previous week's...

The secret of your success.
October 7, 2004... THESE are challenging times for independent financial advisers, with a host of regulatory, compliance and consumer issues impacting on their businesses. First there is the imminent arrival of Mortgage Day, with General Insurance Day -- due...

Have you got what it takes?
October 7, 2004... THE spectacular collapse of the entire pre-funded long-term care market could eventually prove a blessing in disguise, by focussing attention on immediate fees long-term care, which can be bought at the point that care is needed to cap...

Man with the magic touch.(Interview)
October 7, 2004... RICHARD Plackett, Merril Lynch's UK Smaller Companies Fund manager, enjoys nothing more than turning a trick on people. But when he is not playing a hand at bridge, Mr Plackett is busy using the same tactics to keep his fund in the top five of...

Thinc snaps up Norfolk IFA.(Brief Article)
October 7, 2004... THE Thinc Group has acquired another regional IFA company. The IFA Group has bought East Anglian business Fenton Financial Services, to bolster the group's corporate and group personal pension market expertise. Fenton, which is based...

Protection is a capital idea.
October 7, 2004... CAPITAL protected and guaranteed structured products seem to have gained a strong foothold in the retail marketplace. Indeed, according to a recent newspaper report, the National Savings & Investments series of Guaranteed Equity Bonds have so...

High and likely to remain so.
October 7, 2004... OIL prices have recently hit AGBP28 a barrel with the threat to supplies in Nigeria joining a long list of potential disruptions. From the persistent interruption to Iraqi supply, to the possibility of renewed violence in Saudi Arabia, there...

New teeth for faithful guarddog.
October 7, 2004... THE government's proposal to introduce a new pensions regulator follows its green paper, Simplicity Security and Choice: Working and Saving for Retirement, published in December 2003. It proposed a new regulator to be introduced by the Pensions...

Good advice needs to be trusted.
October 7, 2004... IRECENTLY came across a complaint brought by a member against the employer and the trustees where the issue concerned whether there was any duty on the employer or the trustees to advise the member. The case concerned the Nortel Networks UK...