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Weekly Updates
Our Industry Commentator with his top news links each week.
Featured
04 February 2018
Pension transfers continue to dominate the headlines as the wheels of regulation and politics continue to turn slowly.
28 January 2018
The issue of the disclosure of trading costs as part of MiFID II has been rumbling on this week with arguments breaking out all over the place.
21 January 2018
A lively if unlikely spat has broken out between the FCA and the Work and Pensions select committee. The committee and the chairman Frank Field has made some very stark criticisms of the FCA and its actions over the British Steel Pension Scheme. There is a long list of correspondence from various parties on the committee website including from one of the advice firms and the introducer embroiled in the issue.
14 January 2018
Whitehall officials and the Pension Regulator are meeting to discuss the implications of Carillion’s possible collapse. This is surely the key quote from the Sky website.
08 January 2018
As they face another bill, IFAs may well be asking themselves when on earth the FSCS is going to reformed. Actually change is in the pipeline but too soon for the latest cash call.
17 December 2017
The big auto-enrolment review has been published with plans to extent it to 18 years hitting the headlines though not for seven years. There is no decision on increasing contributions. The Secretary of State of Work and Pensions David Gauke writes about the reform in the Guardian.
11 December 2017
Bitcoin has made the headlines, but it is arguably pension transfers not the modern equivalent of tulip mania which most IFAs should be worried about even if it is only the threat of higher compensation bills in future.
03 December 2017
Advisers are on the front of the weekend Financial Times for all the wrong reasons. The full headline is grim for the sector ‘Port Talbot workers lured to opt out of pension fund in adviser ‘feeding frenzy’. Here is the link though the story is, of course, behind the FT paywall.
27 November 2017
The Budget was very much of the whimper not a bang variety. The big news or at least the news Chancellor Philip Hammond would like you to concentrate on is that stamp duty is to be scrapped for first time buyers on the first £300,000 in properties up to £500,000 as Mortgage Strategy reports.
19 November 2017
It looks as if the two main political parties are about to enter a house building bidding war. The Conservatives will say they will build up to 300,000 houses a year according to Chancellor Philip Hammond as the Daily Mail reports, a total which would more than match Labour plans.
13 November 2017
The defined benefit transfers issue continues to rumble on this week.
05 November 2017
The big news in the last seven days has been the small rise in UK interest rates. Professional Adviser discusses the 0.25% increase and the message from the MPC that the next two years will probably bring two more rises.
30 October 2017
Is the reputation of the advice sector about to take another big knock and financial blow to boot?
22 October 2017
The Mail on Sunday’s Personal Finance editor Jeff Prestridge suggests a move to a flat rate of pension tax relief of 30%. Politicians do often heed to the opinions of influential journalists. It would be interesting to be a fly on the wall at the Treasury to hear their reaction.
15 October 2017
It wouldn’t be the run up to the Budget without some discussion of pension tax relief. The last big mooted move was when someone decided to make pensions like ISAs a few years’ back ago. Arguably this time, the plan is more ambitious.
08 October 2017
Slowly but surely, the FCA view on pension transfers is emerging. In its latest look at the market, the FCA finds significant problems with suitability of DB transfers.
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