Women are twice as likely to be unhappy with their financial adviser than men, citing issues such as communication, trust and the overall adviser/client relationship, a survey of 1000 clients from Boring Money and Scottish Widows suggests, as Professional Adviser reports.
This could be important given the much-discussed wealth transfer. Do advisers need to amend their ways?
I really like this paragraph, from Patrick Murphy, director of Sustain Momentum, writing in Money Marketing, and discussing targeted support and the failure of advisers to scale. "The profession faces a choice. We can either treat targeted support as a narrow regulatory allowance — or we can recognise it as the beginning of a more scalable, evidence-driven model of advice delivery."
Relatedly, Citywire New Model Adviser suggests that six advice firms are going through the process of Pre-Application Support Service (PASS) from the FCA and look likely to launch targeted supports services.
The pensions sector is mulling the updated Value for Money proposals from the FCA and yet seem to be broadly welcoming.
Among other changes, the disclosure period has been reduced from 15 to 10 years and schemes will be allowed to include forward looking metrics as well as those for past performance as Corporate Adviser reports. Still a big change for DC pensions, of course.
Emma Douglas looks set to take over as chair of the Pensions Regulator (TPR) after being named as the Government’s preferred candidate, ahead of a pre-appointment hearing later this month. Corporate Adviser reports.
Terry Smith suggests that markets are being distorted by passive investing as reported in ThisisMoney. However, the warning comes after another year of lacklustre performance of Fundsmith Equity posting a return of just 0.8 per cent in 2025, compared to the MSCI World index's 12.8 per cent gain.
In his annual letter, Smith said growing numbers of investors moving into passive funds, which have made huge gains in popularity because they offer a cheap and profitable alternative in rising markets, could be disastrous.
He insists that he is not ‘seeking to ‘blame’ anyone or anything’ for the portfolio’s downturn, but that there were three main drivers behind it.
But the issue is portfolio concentration risk. Actuallly, arguably an interesting point of view, but it is difficult for funds relying on direct investment to make it. Easier for advisers surely?
