Money Management articles from March 2008

Money Management archives from March 2008

Spot the difference.
March 1, 2008... Byline: Today's consumers want jam today, not tomorrow, so any whiff of 'free money' is likely to result in a stampede W hen Axa made a distribution of inherited estate between its with profits policyholders and shareholders back in 2000,...

On the defensive.
March 1, 2008... Byline: NS&I defends guaranteed equity bonds National Savings and Investments (NS&I) has hit back at the Investment Management Association's (IMA) criticism of its guaranteed equity bonds, stating that the IMA's research is too limited to...

Long term fixed rate is the future.
March 1, 2008... Byline: Chancellor wants 25 year fixed rate mortgages to become the norm Alistair Darling has announced that long term home loans will become the future of the mortgage market, with providers and IFAs preparing for a radical shake up ahead...

Transfer issues.
March 1, 2008... Byline: Advisers cautioned on upcoming rules Advisers have been warned that any clients considering transferring out of final salary schemes should consider doing so ahead of new regulations in October. New regulations on the...

Get flexible.
March 1, 2008... Byline: Provider calls for more SSAS competition Greater competition in the small group SIPP market is needed in order to reassure advisers concerned about the legitimacy of such vehicles, a retirement specialist has said. Ian Hammond,...

AIFA calls for change.
March 1, 2008... Byline: IFAs told to focus on clearing debt The Association of Independent Financial Advisers (AIFA) has called for advisers to place more emphasis on reducing consumer debt and increasing their clients' savings. In its 'Manifesto for...

Financial Planner of the year awards update.
March 1, 2008... Byline: Gyles Brandreth to host awards Celebrated author, broadcaster and actor Gyles Brandreth is announced as the master of ceremonies at this year's Financial Planner of the Year Awards. Brandreth's career has ranged from being a...

Tribunal to rule on Lautro 12.
March 1, 2008... Byline: Hearing date set for 25 February The FSA's appeal against the Information Office's ruling on the LAUTRO 12 is set for hearing on 25-26 February in London. Money Management magazine's campaigning was instrumental in getting the...

Too close for comfort?
March 1, 2008... Byline: Some fear selling exclusive products tarnishes independent model Fresh debate over exclusive product deals has arisen following the news that national IFA firm Positive Solutions has signed deals with several product providers to...

Intrepid investors only.
March 1, 2008... Byline: Asia funds launch for experienced investors Fidelity and Jupiter have both launched Asian funds for adventurous investors. The Jupiter Indian fund, a unit trust, aims to achieve long term capital growth by investing in...

Their loss, your gain.
March 1, 2008... Managing Partners Limited (MPL) is entering the property market with the launch of its British Property Opportunities fund. The ICVC will aim for an annual return of 10% or more by investing primarily in residential properties and the...

Right prescription.
March 1, 2008... Wesleyan Assurance Society has launched a SIPP designed to meet the specific needs of its main client groups, primarily doctors, dentists and lawyers. With commercial property investment it considers applications for joint or phased...

A smoking good deal.
March 1, 2008... Partnership Assurance is targeting smokers with a new impaired life annuity. The product gives a guaranteed retirement income to people aged 50+ who have smoked at least 10 cigarettes a day for 10 years or more. It is available only...

Operating on many levels.
March 1, 2008... Fidelity FundsNetwork has launched a range of multi-manager funds available exclusively through the FundsNetwork platform. The five funds are all investment companies with variable capital (ICVCs) and will be managed by Fidelity's...

A new breed.
March 1, 2008... A modernised small self administered scheme (SSAS) has been launched by Parmenion Capital Partners, in conjunction with Premier Pension Services (PPS), the SIPP and SSAS branch of JLT Benefit Solutions. Parmenion offers an outsourced...

Looking for stability.
March 1, 2008... A new structured product from HSBC offers a guaranteed capital return and exposure to growth in the FTSE 100. The HSBC Guaranteed Capital account offers full return of capital at the end of the six year term providing no capital withdrawals...

Promise to pay.
March 1, 2008... Shepherds Friendly Society has launched a mortgage payment protection insurance (MPPI) policy that offers cover for up to five years. The product pays out a monthly benefit that covers the cost of mortgage repayments for those unable to...

Year end tax planning review.
March 1, 2008... Personal allowance and tax rate bands The basic personal allowance plus the starting and basic rate tax bands amount to AGBP39,825 (2007/08) in total. Just making full use of the allowance and the tax bands can save a large amount of income...

Multiple benefits.
March 1, 2008... Tactica, the institutional multi asset manager, is to launch a range of multi asset management funds in the retail market. At launch, the retail offer will comprise three funds: cautious, balanced and growth, and will be managed by Goldman...

Market machinations.
March 1, 2008... The speech on the retail distribution review (RDR) by Stephen Bland, director, small firms division, FSA, at a mortgage conference at the end of November last year has only fuelled speculation about the regulator's intentions towards the...

Friends disunited.
March 1, 2008... Friends Provident has effectively withdrawn from the intermediary market for individual personal pensions following the provider's announcement that it will no longer pay initial commission on new pension schemes. In its strategy review,...

A cautious option.
March 1, 2008... How investors behave in times of crisis is more a matter of psychology than anything else. Certainly, as their actions have shown over the past few months as stock markets become increasingly unstable, there is not much rationale about people's...

A surreal turn from PADA.
March 1, 2008... Byline: There is much Dali in the charging structures paper from the new PADA, comments John Chapman The Personal Accounts Delivery Authority (PADA) may deserve brownie points for consulting on the secondary issue of charging structures for...

Faulty towers.
March 1, 2008... The tides have turned on property funds after several years of unprecedented growth. During the four years up to the beginning of January 2007, property funds averaged returns of more than 18% pa. And when Money Management looked at commercial...

Taking stock - successful asset allocation.
March 1, 2008... Upbraided by his advisers for putting a penny tax on the use of Rome's public lavatories, Emperor Vespasian replied, "Money does not smell". This should be the attitude of investors. It is not. Morality and nationalism Vespasian was...

Structured novelties.
March 1, 2008... Byline: The structured products industry should come clean over operations and charges, suggests John Chapman Structured products are advancing across Europe, though, beyond guaranteed equity bonds (GEBs) and the ill-fated precipice bonds,...

The new black or last season's colours?
March 1, 2008... This year's World Economic Forum at Davos, a meeting of world business and political leaders, had the same distinctly green hue that we have seen from it in recent years. Top of the agenda was climate change and how to tackle it. Rather than...

Time for a change.
March 1, 2008... There has been considerable bad publicity from the tabloid press surrounding the underwriting practices of the protection industry, much stemming from the number of declined claims. The perception is that many insurers have simply tried to...

Following in the FTSE steps.
March 1, 2008... At the end of 2007, the FTSE 100 saw its most radical quarterly shake-up of companies since the beginning of the century with seven new companies entering the index and, consequently, seven leaving. Three months later and fears of a recession,...

Long time coming.
March 1, 2008... The long term care market could be set for resurgence. The Government is making noises about working with the private sector to address concerns about how the UK is going to pay for the care of old people unable to care for themselves. Sadly,...

Mutually exclusive.
March 1, 2008... Few people appreciate how many legal concepts are available to defeat the provisions of a will. These concepts include: - A lifetime gift in contemplation of dying - donatio mortis causa - a wonderfully old fashioned phrase: - Claims...

Sidestepping regulations.
March 1, 2008... Byline: Change rules for advice, observers say Long term care specialists have warned that some advisers are using legal loopholes to advise on elderly care fees without the appropriate qualification and have called on the FSA to change its...

Too good to be true?
March 1, 2008... Every day, asset managers bombard retail and professional investors alike with advertisements featuring past performance figures, despite the fact that past results have been shown to be a rather poor predictor of future performance. The...

The road ahead.
March 1, 2008... When Gordon Brown, then Chancellor, announced in last year's Budget that ISA limits would be raised, the only complaint was that he had not gone further - a number of people had called for the annual allowance to be raised to AGBP10,000. The...

Cents and sensibility.
March 1, 2008... With two Federal Reserve rate cuts in two weeks during January, analysts, investors and world governments are all eyeing the United States' economy with a wariness more usually associated with recently escaped zoo animals than one of the...

RDR.
March 1, 2008... Byline: Letter of the month I don't always agree with your comments (January 2008) but on this occasion I totally enhance your comment that RDR should be put away for at least 5 years until the industry gets to grips with the changes from...

Q&A.
March 1, 2008... Byline: Jo Dymock asks Felix Wintle whether the US can really produce returns in 2008 US equities were a scary place to be in 2007, with some funds losing 10% over the year. Other funds, however, managed to drag respectable returns out of...

Thanks for everything.
March 1, 2008... This must be an unusual source of letter for you. I am an Iraqi heating engineer, came to the UK in 1978 and now a UK subject. In the early 80s, while servicing the home of a financial adviser (then I could not tell if he was independent, tied...

Qualified regulators.
March 1, 2008... Being 'qualified' in 'regulation' is like holding a diploma in flower arranging and then trying to dictate how horticulturalists should actually grow the flowers. The Financial Services Authority is devoid of the expertise that it needs to...

With profit bonds.
March 1, 2008... Just had an investment statement from Scottish Widows for a client. TB has increased the policy valuation by 6.2% as at 31 Dec 2007 which, following the increase of 5.3% at the end of June means I'm glad I didn't panic a few years back and...

If...
March 1, 2008... I am compelled to write in response to January's 'Comment' in MM. I am slightly surprised at your contention that things are not 'actually broken but simply in need of better policing'. We have had incrementally better (or least tougher)...

Rise but no shine.
March 1, 2008... Byline: Firms and advisers must fund 6.9% increase in fees New proposals from the Financial Services Authority (FSA) on increases in annual fees have angered small IFA firms, who look set to be hit the worst by the recent budgetary review....

SIPPs vs PPs.
March 1, 2008... As usual I found John Chapman's latest article on the SIPP market (January 2008) compelling reading. It is a market with which I have been associated for the past 18 years and its growth has been consistent and perhaps remarkable given all the...

SIPPs vs PPs.
March 1, 2008... John Chapman's article 'A battle of giants' attempts to paint a picture that SIPPs are more expensive than personal pensions and stakeholders. However, when analysing Standard Life products, Chapman has compared apples with pears. He uses...

Q&A.
March 1, 2008... Byline: Jo Dymock asks Julie Mulvanny about the role of individual pensions in today's market Q: Do you think that the rampant growth of SIPPs displacing personal pensions is justified? JM: SIPP sales are in fact a very positive thing...

SIPPs vs PPs.
March 1, 2008... John Chapman's article 'A battle of giants' looked primarily at the impact of charges. The assumption shown in Table 4 for the charges on the Hargreaves Lansdown SIPP is for fund charges of 1.6%. In my experience this figure might be...

Crib sheet: personal pensions.
March 1, 2008... Personal pensions(or individual pensions as they are also known) replaced retirement annuity contracts (RACs) in April 1988, with stakeholder priced pensions introduced in 2001. Personal pension scheme are always money purchase schemes, meaning...

Have FAIF in hedge funds.
March 1, 2008... Byline: Retail investors wait for green light from FSA Nedgroup Investments is poised to launch a retail fund of hedge funds as soon as changes proposed by the FSA come into effect. The FSA announced at the start of 2007 that it planned to...

Personal pensions: latest results.
March 1, 2008... Sales of self invested personal pensions (SIPPs) over recent years have been meteoric. They have caught the imagination of investors keen to avoid what they see as high charging, poor performing personal pensions; coupled with the chance to...

Vultures overhead.
March 1, 2008... Byline: Distressed portfolios provide opportunities Opportunity funds are waiting in the wings to snatch up assets from distressed property funds that are selling off their holdings to pay exiting investors. Invista Real Estate,...

In the pipeline.
March 1, 2008... Byline: Protection trial gets go ahead A new product trial is aiming to discover whether there is consumer interest in a protection product that guarantees payout on death regardless of non disclosure. The life insurance product will...

Looking East.
March 1, 2008... Byline: Predictions for year of the rat China's success is not dependent on fluctuations in the West, according to the fund manager of the highest performing retail fund in 2007. Gartmore China Opportunities fund manager Charlie Awdry...

Wind in their sales.
March 1, 2008... Byline: Life firms stay buoyant in turbulent times Several life companies announced improved sales figures in 2007 despite tougher market conditions. Legal & General reported that its UK life and pension sales were up 8% to AGBP1,160m...

Adviser issues.
March 1, 2008... Byline: Research reveals IFA thoughts on the provision of advice Platforms will be key to 80% of advisers' future strategies, according to findings by CWC Research, with over half wanting a single platform solution. The research...