News & updates

There was disappointment the FCA did not address ‘contingent charges’ in its DB transfer advice paper. This was never likely. It’s not specific to DB transfers and it’s already in the handbook. It’s a normal commercial source of conflict. It's far from the only one...

Today's FCA proposals for new requirements for advice on Defined Benefit (DB) pension transfers are of much wider significance than that. It’s as if the regulator was comfortable bumbling along with a general approach to investment projections and suitability...

Here is what we said to clients on Friday after the Election about how a hung Parliament (and hung Brexit talks) will affect how we invest. We know exactly what to do but know nothing about what will happen next. The realism of our agnostic model of short-term...

We don't want to give up control of our money but we trust the internet to guide our own control. But about as many do not trust technology at all and so may be the same people who overwhelmingly trust their own bank as the preferred source of the information or...

Vanguard's entry into the 'direct to consumer' market is another step in the commoditisation of core investment products. Though it was always possible to buy core investment funds direct from a single provider, such as L&G's suite of index tracking funds, without...

In a new short paper from the Centre for Policy Studies, pensions expert Michael Johnson argues that pension freedoms went too far, ignoring his own policy position (since at least 2010) that freedom is fine as long as it is both supported by market solutions and...

Charging the same fees for active funds that hug the index as for genuinely-active funds is increasingly being presented as fraudulent or mis-selling - as something inconsistent with the duties of care owed to customers by fund providers and by advisers recommending...

How to invest can be reduced to two choices: system player or entrepreneur. System players are happy to harvest the risk-related returns available just by exposing capital to risk in public markets. Entrepreneurs, as in other fields, are not content with market...