Money Management articles from September 2004

Money Management archives from September 2004

Wrap happy.
September 1, 2004... The wrap market is here to stay according to new research, which found that over 90% of IFAs want to introduce wrap accounts to the bulk of their investment clients. The latest annual study into the wrap market by CWC Research polled 100...

IFAcare to adopt Axa orphans.
September 1, 2004... IFACare members will be advising 'orphan' long term care policyholders following a unique agreement with Axa PPP. The move came after the provider, which withdrew from the pre funded long term care market last year, reviewed the situation...

Medical insurers get State aid.
September 1, 2004... The only added extra that some people get from the NHS is a hospital infection. The private medical insurance companies, however, have recently received an unexpected but welcome added extra from the State. The NHS is sharing its medical...

A blast from the past.
September 1, 2004... Following the Conservatives' sweeping victory in the general election, September 1979 saw Sir Geoffrey Howe, Chancellor of the Exchequer, writing for Money Management about the thinking behind his first Budget. Overall the Budget was...

Cofunds prepares commission wrap.
September 1, 2004... Cofunds will become the first wrap account to offer a commission-paying investment bond when it launches a product provided by Legal & General next year. The UK's most popular fund supermarket is also planning to include a personal pension...

More Equitable strife.
September 1, 2004... The Institute of Actuaries is to hold disciplinary proceedings, which could see four former Equitable Life chief executives banned from the profession Chris Headdon, Alan Nash, Roy Ranson, and Barry Sherlock, who took charge of the...

Hit the right note.
September 1, 2004... Owing to popular demand we are pleased to announce that Justin Urquhart Stewart, director and co-founder of Seven Investment Management, will be the keynote speaker at Financial Adviser Expo for the second year running. Over 1,000...

Trailer trash.
September 1, 2004... When I was a little girl I wanted to grow up to be Wonderwoman. I longed to wear that sparkly costume, and imagined wielding my magic powers in the fight for justice. Now I am no longer a little girl I've lost interest in the sparkly...

Playing FTSE.
September 1, 2004... Two new structured products are launching this autumn: one offering a copper-bottomed guarantee that it will preserve capital and one offering a downside risk similar to a direct investment in equities. Both invest in the FTSE 100 but the...

First rate?
September 1, 2004... First Active, part of the Royal Bank of Scotland Group, has launched two new fixed rate mortgages. The first, a two-year discount mortgage, has an initial discount rate of 0.21 basis points below the Bank of England base rate, currently...

Fantasy portfolio challenge.
September 1, 2004... The best performing portfolio over the month was fully invested in money market funds. The month tested investors' acumen to allocate assets such that the short term tilt in a portfolio is in harmony with the long term direction that it ought...

commercial DOOR re-opens.
September 1, 2004... A property fund enabling retail clients to invest in commercial bricks and mortar is being relaunched this month. The Strutt & Parker Real Estate Financial Services (SPREFS) UK Commercial Property Fund acts as a feeder for the Deutsche UK...

Charity begins at work.
September 1, 2004... Do you have an old mobile phone or printer cartridge lying around at work? Old mobiles and empty printer cartridges can be recycled and the proceeds used to help fund vital research into the early detection, diagnosis and treatment of lung...

scot eq at the double.
September 1, 2004... Scottish Equitable International has launched its first property fund in a bid to meet IFA demand for exposure to the sector. The Scottish Equitable International Property Fund will be managed by the Morley Fund Management Property team and...

keepING it IN THE family.
September 1, 2004... The latest in a range of FTSE linked structured products from Citigroup offers two growth options and 100% capital protection. Option one of the Enhanced Growth Plan III, the latest addition to the Equity First family of products, provides...

sin of omission.
September 1, 2004... Clerical Medical has announced the launch of an OEIC wrapper for its five best selling insurance funds. Its Distribution Account, which celebrated its 10th birthday earlier this summer, Balanced Managed, FTSE 100 Tracker, Income and...

The incredible shrinking surrender value.
September 1, 2004... Millions of policyholders have lost significant proportions of their savings through the secret cutting of with profits endowments' surrender values and the transfer and paid up values of pension plans. Each year as much as AGBP1bn pounds of...

Making a fuss about the FOS.
September 1, 2004... Most ombudsman cases are decided in favour of firms, but among IFAs the service has still managed to achieve a level of unpopularity that Urs Meier could sympathise with. Meier was the Swiss referee that managed to incur the wrath of English...

Stakeholder profit margins too slim.
September 1, 2004... The intended lower income beneficiaries of stakeholder products are to be overlooked by providers seeking 'acceptable' break even numbers. According to actuarial consultancy Tillinghast, the minimum premiums required by providers to break...

GETTING READY FOR M DAY.
September 1, 2004... The FSA is trying to put a brave face on things after it published take up figures for mortgage authorisation applications. As at 13 July, 6,536 brokers had registered to obtain an application pack and it had received 3,912 applications for...

PENSION LITIGATION - COMING TO A SCHEME NEAR You.
September 1, 2004... Research shows that pension scheme costs are rising faster than any other business overhead with companies citing actuarial, funding and compliance as the main causes. However, employers in the USA are increasingly finding themselves subject to...

Closing the savings gap - turmoil and turf wars lie ahead.
September 1, 2004... Over the coming year the pensions industry faces turmoil and probably turf wars as multiple changes are thrust on the industry -- a new charges cap, Sandler products, a simplified sales regime, depolarisation, the menu approach, and continuing...

Taking Stock.
September 1, 2004... Investors did not need a select committee of the Treasury to tell them what they already knew. Whatever method of saving used, from pension fund to life assurance policy to simple investment fund, and independent of the type of adviser --...

Endowments vs. PEP Isa mortgages.
September 1, 2004... Of all the crises and scandals that seem to have beset financial services with alarming regularity during the past few years, the alleged mis-selling of endowment mortgages is undoubtedly the most emotive. Although other products have collapsed...

PI going on to infinity.
September 1, 2004... Beleaguered IFAs, exasperated by the increasing cost of liability insurance, could be hounded into retirement unless confusion over run-off PI cover is cleared up. In the interests of consumer protection, no limit is placed on the length...

Carry on regardless.
September 1, 2004... On 2 August 2004 Investec, owner of Policy Portfolio and Beale Dobie, decided to withdraw both from the traded endowment policy market. The two major players in the TEP market had suffered substantially from the fall in the stock market and...

IFA partners strike out.
September 1, 2004... Money management learnt on 10 August that advisers at IFA Rickman Tooze are to conclude a management buyout that will see only the top producers in the firm become partners. The 12 advisers producing the highest income have formed a limited...

Pruhealth on its marks.
September 1, 2004... The launch of a reward based private medical insurance scheme will spearhead a new protection market charm offensive by Prudential. PruHealth, the PMI joint venture between Prudential and South African health insurer Discovery, will give...

Abbey Wrap hangs in the balance.
September 1, 2004... Abbey's pioneering wrap account may be an unintended victim of the bank's AGBP8.2bn agreed takeover by Banco Santander Central Hispano. Most of the savings identified by the Spanish bank will come from the rationalisation of the two...

IFA FM.
September 1, 2004... A new radio show is set to discover whether IFAs like the sound of their own voices as much as some people say they do. The personal finance programme, being launched in September by Llewellyn Slade PR, is provisionally titled Your money...

Back on track?
September 1, 2004... 2004 is the year of the "hippo" market, suggests Gordon Davidson, managing director of Jupiter Unit Trust Managers. In other words, it is a market prone to volatility, but that mostly moves sideways; long gone are the days when investors could...

Arty farce.
September 1, 2004... We were shocked to learn that the FSA spends tens of thousands of pounds of your money adorning the walls of its Dockland's headquarters. The industry regulator buys artwork from a number of collections for as much as AGBP10,000 each. It...

Whitechurch complaints proceeding at FOS.
September 1, 2004... The first claims for mis- selling compensation against liquidated IFA firm Whitechurch Investment Services (WIS) are about to receive a decision from the Financial Ombudsman Service. Direct-mail firm WIS was put into voluntary liquidation...