First things first: Happy New Year. I hope it’s a good one for you, your business and your clients.
I have written before about my concerns about the way the Financial Ombudsman Service is reaching decisions in cases involving SIPPs and SIPP investments and the implications for SIPP providers and advisers.
Picture the scene: a moderately busy suburban branch of a High Street bank in early 2015. A motor cycle courier arrives. He is carrying a large bin bag full of cash, the wads carefully wrapped.
When I switched from accountancy to financial advice in 1987 the landscape was dominated by a few very large salesforces.
The Pension Freedoms were introduced in 2015 by Chancellor George Osborne and were hailed, at the time, as a “pensions revolution” and the biggest changes to pensions in a century.
At last we finally know who was to blame for all the faults in the financial advisory sector over the past 20 years - it was the appointed reps all the time. Or was it?
The FCA, finally, is putting on its big boots in an effort to intervene much sooner when it spots the regulatory bad boys trying to rip off savers.
When a client meets with a Financial Planner they want to feel that their life is special.
Social media can be a curse as well as a blessing, as people are now realising.
I was saddened this week, as I’m sure many of you were, to learn of the untimely death of veteran Financial Planner Carolyn Gowen at the relatively young age of 58, just a few months after she retired.
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Confidence in politicians has taken a knock lately. Perhaps they would welcome the chance now to redeem their reputation and demonstrate they can be trusted to uphold important promises made to their constituents.
I am not surprised by the findings of a new survey which suggests that the over-50s are cold-shouldering robo advice.
I suspect more than a few lovers of red wine, myself included, winced when we heard the Chancellor planned to add the best part of 50p to a bottle.
Quietly and gradually the FCA is changing and not before time.