Industry news and views from Panacea and our partners.
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What is Mifid? Just the basic facts, can you tell me where it hurts?
It is the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive and it came into effect on 1 November 2007
Bonfire of the insanities?
Michael Fallon is a decent man from my experience of meeting with him in March 2010.
Its as easy as 1-2-3, do re me, abc?
At the end of August, this document was published -the latest FSA tome on changes to how financial advice will look post 1st January 2013 and sadly but not unexpectedly disappoints.
Views from the Front Line
Our recent FSCS Levy Survey was completed by almost 500* independent financial advisers and the results produced almost 100 pages of comments.
FOS urges
It is not often that one could say that the FOS has assumed a high moral ground position but this may be just one of those occasions if not an actual regulatory landmark.
Reflections on July - Pat's blog
After a really hectic June, July for me is a month for reflecting on the past 6 months
Rotten apples removed
We live in a strange world 'chock full' of some very strange people with some strange views on what is and is not acceptable regarding how you conduct your life.
PI- Apocalypse ahead?
We have never undertaken occupational pension transfers, equity release and have never sold an endowment. Those are the areas they usually focus on in their ever-lengthening renewal forms, as you probably know, with PPI getting a look-in in recent years.
Badges? We don't need no stinking badges
PanaceaIFA have teamed up with ThoughtLeadership Live to produce a FREE Bento for One webcast to support and educate IFA's.
If you need a friend, get a dog
It was the great Gordon Gekko who said, Moral hazard is when they take your money and then are not responsible for what they do with it.
FSCS Levy Survey - now closed, results due next week.
The FSA has proposed to hike its annual costs by 15.6 per cent from £500.5m for 2011/12 to £578.4m for 2012/13
Longstop and enforcing the law
Do you remember the story of Deborah Hunt? She is the (now former) financial adviser who last July drove the wrong way up the M5 without insurance but with twice the legal maximum level of alcohol in her blood.
FundsNetwork launches RDR guide for advised clients
FundsNetwork has created The Changing Face of Advice guide to assist advisers when explaining the impact of the Retail Distribution Review (RDR) to their clients.
Gimme the money- now! The cost of running and IFA business in 2012
In the run up to RDR, now some 180 days away, and minds very focused on a myriad of distractions such as exams, business models, segmentation and post RDR status it is re-assuring to know that right in the middle of this morass comes encouragement to firms to just keep going from the FSCS and the FSA by way of ever increasing demands for cash.
Counting the cost of Independence
If you pop into Gieves & Hawkes at 1 Saville Row and head for the made-to-measure department, you will have two choices, bespoke, made from outset specifically for you, or the so-called personally tailored suit.
Post RDR advice costs. Whats it all about Alfie?
I read a comment earlier in the week in relation to this headline Aifa and Deloitte disagree on independent advice cost. Independent advice is likely to cost more than restricted recommendations, Deloitte warns, while Aifa says charging will be unaffected.
Twitter sense check needed now
Last week we referred to the FSAs Final Guidance document on the RDR chestnut of definitions for Independent and Restricted advice.
Is that all clear to you? FSA RDR finalised guidance now out.
So at last the FSA guidance has been issued, all 16 pages of it. The purpose is to create clarity, at least I have assumed that to be the case.
Customer segmentation
Academics define customer segmentation as the practice of dividing a customer base into groups of individuals that are similar in specific ways relevant to marketing, such as age, gender, interests, spending habits, and so on. Using segmentation allows companies to target groups effectively, and allocate business resources to best effect.
RDR: Time for the Voice of the Real Consumer to be heard?
Modern regulation has proved to be very lucrative for some. There is a complete policy factory at the FSA which pumps out 50 policy statements and policy documents every year.
Defining business vision and objectives
'Vision without action is a dream. Action without vision is simply passing the time. Action with vision is making a positive difference.'
Independent, Restricted or IFR, a third way?
As a country the UK has moved away from the manufacture of goods and products and has moved toward the manufacture and provision of intangible goods and services.
FSA may probe NewsCorp emails
The Financial Services Authority (FSA) is considering scrutinising emails sent from the office of culture secretary Jeremy Hunt to News Corporation representatives, it has been reported.
FSA Oddity- the circuit's dead, there's something wrong?
So another key RDR architect, Peter Smith, the FSAs head of investment policy is to leave in June and will head to Dubai to join the Dubai Financial Services Authority.
Insolvency too
This came to me by e mail on Friday, it was a mail to an IFAs accountant raising some interesting points: The identity of the adviser has been kept out of the ether for now for obvious reasons.
There must be some kind of way out of here
There must be some way out of here, said the joker to the thief, there's too much confusion, I can't get no relief. Dylan and Hendrix were right.
Situation vacant. Engagement Champion at the FOS- a job for you?
Now I suspect this may just make you feel a little cross. The FOS are looking to spend your money on recruiting a person with: Enthusiasm, imagination and energy to get people clicking? Were looking for an engagement champion who understands exactly what to do to make our people click. Someone who ...
734 Stinking Badges cancelled
Recently we highlighted concerns over the seemingly unchecked proliferation of claims management companies and noted that the financial services industry is going through one of the most radical overhauls ever seen yet while all this is going on, the more Wild West the legal system is becoming and one must question whether the MoJ is turning into a version of Rock Ridge where the town is out of control with no Sherriff.
CI Expert
Advising on critical illness insurance is not about the cheapest premium or the most well known name.
Moron Advice Service?
We have become ever more concerned that there is no Cunning Plan at the FSA to educate consumers, and especially consumers who have an IFA relationship.
Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel?
A beam of light shone brightly, albeit briefly, into the regulatory darkness when I read that the Prudential had branded the FSA legacy proposals as ludicrous and horrendous for consumers.
Lights Camera Action
I would class myself as a common-or-garden generalist IFA, earning a decent living helping ordinary people with their financial planning. Im no specialist or superstar of our profession, not a top-of-the-table high producer or anything like that. I live in the far, far west of Cornwall, because I married a lovely girl from Lands End 15 years ago. Its a beautiful place to live and bring up kids, though it is a very long way from anywhere.
Coles to Newcastle?
So we now know, Margaret Cole will be a member of PWC UKs executive board with responsibility for the office of general counsel.
Saints not Sants
The curious thing about the RDR and all the commentary surrounding its arrival is the context of the industry as a whole. Forgive me for thinking with a partisan view of the world, but the last time I looked, there was still a massive demand for financial advice of all shapes and sizes for every man, woman and child in the country.
Bode's Sensitivity Integral and the Waterbed effect
The Waterbed effect is a phenomenon that will increasingly cause concern to those who regulate the industry and those it regulates in regard to pricing, consumer detriment and delayed back office system upgrades.
FOS- fact or fiction?
IFA Paolo Standerwick has been engaged in a one-man fight with the FOS over receiving what he sees as unfair treatment relating to a complaint made against his firm.
Paradox - Common sense in regulation?
Regulation is a paradox in that it means to be absolute, and yet is relative in that it somehow always goes beyond itself and yet never escapes itself.
A cunning plan indeed IFA letter of the week
Between 1974 and 1985 I did Financial and Management Accounts work and this took in Salaries and Wages routines and even Auditing tasks.
I saw the light on the night that I passed by her window ..
Many were agog that FSA MD Margaret Cole, once tipped to be The Boss, is leaving after seven years at the regulator.
Badges? We don't need no stinking badges
A marketing opportunity of the very worst kind or out of adversity comes opportunity? ABI Director General Otto Thoreson was meeting with the PM this week to discuss something that the UK is a Euro leader at- Whiplash claims management.