The Consumer Duty may be having real world impacts already. St James’s Place has reviewed its charging structure and cut fees as the Times reports.
In half-year results, SJP said it was capping annual management charges on bond and pension contributions for clients who have been invested for over ten years.
Annual product management fees for long-term clients of the firm who hold bond and pension investments are to be reduced from 1 per cent to 0.85 per cent from next week, the company said. About 65,000 clients of St James’s Place stand to benefit as the FT reports.
There was a big hit to SJP’s share price last Thursday with around a 16 per cent fall.
It would be interesting to see what exactly it is about SJP’s charging model that the firm believed had to be amended due to regulation, rather than just charges cut per se.
And an even more interesting question for other advisers is whether there will be more pressure on their charges.
Abrdn is to merge what Sky News calls its once mighty GARs fund into another fund in the range.
The decision to fold it into the company's diversified asset funds comes after Gars' assets fell to £1.4bn - down from £27bn in May 2016, as Sky News reports.
Arguably GARs did not really do what it said on the tin and that has certainly been investors’ perspective, though there have been periods when some absolute returns have done well.
On a related them, New Model Adviser quotes advisers suggesting that absolute return strategies may struggle to meet the Consumer Duty’s requirements when they are constructing portfolios in the wake of Abrdn shutting its GARs fund.
Mike Morrow, chief commercial officer at Parmenion, says the regulator would be ‘deeply uncomfortable’ with platforms making excessive profits on client cash holdings in this Citywire podcast.
This may be a combination of economic conditions and high inflation and rates, the issue getting more attention (some platforms have always garnered substantial revenues from uninvested cash) and that Duty again.
Link Fund Services has announced that PwC has been appointed to oversee the Woodford compensation scheme.
It has also announced that Jamie Drummond-Smith had been appointed as independent chairman of the committee of investors.
