You report some of my comments from the Labour Party Conference following Sir Callum McCarthy’s recent speech but the headline suggesting that I favour churn is misleading.
If customers are advised to shift between long-term investment products of equal suitability purely to gain commission, then there is clearly no gain to individual customers or to the reputation and financial health of the savings market itself. So we agree with Sir Callum’s warning about this kind of unproductive churn. But it is clearly right for consumers to be advised to switch providers if they can get better value, better service or a wider range of investment options elsewhere. Switching can serve consumers extremely well and my point at the conference was that consumer groups and regulators often take it as a sign of a healthy market in other areas, for instance, in telecommunications or the energy utilities. Switching drives cost reduction and product innovation. That is why the ABI is arguing for some choice in personal accounts. Competition and choice are good both for consumers and the industry – commission-driven churn is not. We should not sacrifice one in our determination to combat the other. Stephen Haddrill, director general, Association of British insurersRecommended
Tories claim IFAs are being scared off Asps
The Tories say that Government threats of a U-turn on alternatively secured pensions are a ploy to bully IFAs into not selling the products and save Labour from having to scrap Asps. Speaking at a British Ban-kers’ Association and Cicero Consulting fringe event at the Conservative party conference in Bournemouth on Monday, Shadow Treasury Financial […]
The IVA league
Going bust is booming, says chm:ping joint managing director Rupert Pybus, and aggressive marketing of individual voluntary agreements is one of the main reasons for hundreds of thousands seeking a way out of debt problems
Value of ongoing advice
It’s in both your interests to bully clients, in the nicest possible way, into having regular financial reviews
The name aim
On October 1 the Association of Investment Trust Companies is becoming the Association of Investment Companies.
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Paul Casson, manager of the Artemis Pan-European Absolute Return Fund, explains why he likes Irish housebuilders but is shorting banks – and how one Spanish TV company is going against media trends. Click here to read more
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