Legal & General expects to record profits of up to £400m this year due to its customers not living as long as expected. On Tuesday the Office for National Statistics reported increases in average life expectancy at birth and age 65, for both men and women in the UK, slowed dramatically from 2011 to 2016. […]
The parent of Yorkshire Bank and Clydesdale Bank has agreed to buy Virgin Money for £1.7bn. The businesses say the deal will create the UK’s first “true national banking competitor to the status quo”. The new group will serve around six million customers. A notice to investors from CYBG says: “The combined group will have […]
Bankhall has partnered with paraplanning specialists Timebank to launch a service to help firms boost their advice capacity. The service provides firms with access to paraplanners who are qualified to level six and a variety of options to meet their needs. Options for firms range from a full hourly rate bespoke service that replicates an […]
The nine advice firms acquired by Harwood Wealth Management in the first half of the year have added £310m assets under advice to the business. According to an update today, Harwood will pay a total of £10.9m for the acquisitions, completed in the six months to 30 April. Harwood says £6.7m of that total has […]
Investment firm Dolfin has bought a “significant” equity stake in national IFA Alexander House Financial Services. Alexander House is an appointed representative of Old Mutual Wealth-owned network Intrinsic. Dolfin is an independent financial services company providing custody, execution and asset management to advisers and their clients. Nick Kelly: The number one deal breaker for acquisitions […]
Aviva is planning to buy back £600m of its own shares, in an effort to deploy £2bn of excess capital this year. The provider says it has “significant excess capital” and this year will use £900m for debt reduction, £500m for acquisitions and £600m for the share buy-back. The buy-back will run from today to […]
The FCA’s recent discussion paper, DP18/2: Transforming Culture in Financial Services, focused heavily on how to drive cultural change within an organisation. A number of the paper’s contributors highlight that focusing solely on senior management behaviour and the ‘tone from the top’ overlooks the complexity of organisational culture and the role all employees have in […]
Consolidator Fairstone has launched a new Individual Buy Out programme to help advisers create exit strategies for their firms. The scheme enables advisers to build a long-term tax-efficient retirement fund while keeping continuity of service for their clients. Advisers will receive an initial capital sum, a proportion of ongoing fee revenue for an agreed period […]
Old Mutual Wealth Management has officially changed its name to Quilter ahead of its plans to list and separate from Old Mutual. The business’s subsidiaries will be re-branded to Quilter over a two-year period after the separation. In the meantime it will continue to use the names Old Mutual Wealth (UK Platform/Life Assurance), Old Mutual […]
Aviva Insurance chief executive Andy Briggs will take home an extra £1m in bonuses on top of a basic salary of £726,000 for 2017. The bonus is one part of Briggs’s £2.5m remuneration package, which also includes benefits and pensions contributions. Commenting on Briggs’s work in its remuneration committee report, published today, Aviva says there was […]
The world is a challenging place for a traditional one-man (or -woman) band Increased regulation and rising costs are leading to a growing number of mid-sized adviser firms. Sole trader and two-handed businesses are becoming rarer as changing rules and client demands present a greater challenge for smaller firms. Between compliance, technology and the implementation […]
Royal Bank of Scotland is mulling launching a standalone digital bank and has assigned a former top executive to the project, according to reports. Sky News says RBS’s former chief operating officer Mark Bailie is leading the “secret” project and that tens of millions of pounds have been assigned to creating the digital platform. The […]
How do advisers stay relevant in an increasingly automated world? People can equip themselves with an ever-growing armoury of apps and robo solutions to help with their financial planning needs. Why pay for an adviser? As an adviser, your unique selling points are the things that make you human. Your emotional intelligence allows you to […]
There is a bewildering choice of exams at level 4, all tested in different ways. Here, I want to look at two of the most popular routes: the CII’s Diploma in Regulated Financial Planning and Diploma in Financial Planning. There are, of course, options from other examining bodies such as the Chartered Institute for Securities […]
I was never a big fan of the business plan process when I worked in the industry. Each year, it became more complicated and meaningless. Bottom-up numbers painstakingly developed through God knows how many boring internal meetings were then “calibrated” at group level. Inevitably, our projected revenues were increased and expenses reduced. Basically, our work […]
Some advisers are welded to independence but for others restricted status makes more sense. Three restricted advice firms share their experiences The one-man band Lowland Financial managing director Graeme Mitchell became restricted after he was advised that a one-man band would not be able to demonstrate true independence after the Retail Distribution Review. “I took compliance advise and spoke to the FCA asking how feasible is it for a one-man band to demonstrate […]
Two months into the new rules, advisers are still far from welcoming the change The General Data Protection Regulation came into force on 25 May. The new rules require personal data to be purchased lawfully and fairly and only collected for specified and legitimate purposes. It must be relevant and limited to what is necessary […]
Planning and training are key if you want your advisers to buy your business when the time comes to stand back The past few years have seen an increase in the number of advice firm owners who, when the time comes, want to consider a sale to their employees as an option in addition to […]
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I have always had a keen interest in the content marketing side of my business. The last few years have seen content marketing become more important across the sector, with everyone from fund groups, product providers, platforms and advisers looking to excel in it. For those less up to speed, content marketing is a strategy that […]
Sometimes emotions drive client decisions so advisers need solutions that satisfy emotional and financial objectives. As humans, we have very elaborate neural systems to address threats. In particular, the emotional circuitry that kicks in to protect us from perceived threats – the ‘fight-or-flight’ response. But there is a very important distinction between threats in the modern world versus […]
A few months ago, I pulled a muscle in my lower back which was total agony. I went to see a sports therapist, who carefully and diligently carried out an examination. She then carried out a massage to ease the inflammation. At the end of the consultation, the therapist gave me some advice on exercises […]
Catch up with last week’s Money Marketing debate on what Labour would mean for financial planners with former pensions minister Steve Webb and three leading advisers.
FSCS levies are one of the biggest bills advisers have to pay. But how are they calculated? Watch our video to find out Advisers slam levy increases as FSCS bills hit desks Solving the FSCS’ long list of problems FSCS chief executive Mark Neale’s blog
FCA chief executive Andrew Bailey has just marked his first year at the top of the regulator. Money Marketing asks: Who is the man running the financial services show? Watch: Where do your FCA fees go?
Title: MM Wired: Beyond the election Date: Thursday 15th June Time: 11am Money Marketing Wired returned in association with The UK Edge on Thursday 15 June with a topical debate on the election results. To see the full on-demand version of this session, please watch the video above. Panelists Stephanie Flanders – Chief Market Strategist (UK […]
Demand for financial advice is growing, but what clients want is changing both rapidly and significantly. In this webinar, Leo Schulz, senior investment writer, speaks to Garrett Harbron, senior investment strategist, about the way turnkey investment solutions and robo-advice are transforming the way value is delivered. They also discuss emerging insights from our ongoing survey […]
About this time last year, Vanguard introduced our paper The evolution of Vanguard Adviser’s Alpha®: From portfolios to people in the United States. It explored our vision of the future of advice, and what advisers need to do in order to remain relevant and profitable. One of the more interesting (and controversial) findings of the paper was […]
Relationship management is the path to client satisfaction. In this paper, Vanguard Investment Strategy Group explores how advisers can differentiate themselves from their competitors. Read the full article, and also find out about our upcoming symposium and workshops. Important information: This information is directed at professional investors and should not be distributed to, or relied […]