Well it’s been a hectic 3 weeks on the road around the UK with the Personal Finance Society (PFS). We have been privileged to meet over 1000 adviser and wealth management business owners and their staff all who are working hard on their business and with their clients and want to learn more about professional practice.
We have now enjoyed exhibiting and speaking on RegTech at 6 of the 26 Personal Finance Society (PFS) Regional events. They seem to attract high quality delegates from the retail investment advice sector and are extremely well attended throughout each day
One area that has always never failed to amuse me is the saying that the trouble with opinions is everyone has got one!
With the retail investment adviser (RIA) market now under severe scrutiny via the FCA’s accountability regime, their latest Data Bulletin focused on 2018 RMAR driven data analysis across revenues, profitability, number of firms, capital resource, Professional Indemnity Insurance (PII) premiums and advice type and revenue from adviser charges.
We’ve written extensively about the new FCA accountability regime and with the recent FCA Dear CEO letterto the SIPP market in October last year, it has now emerged, thanks to a Professional Adviser freedom of information request that 11 SIPP firms have been paid a visit.
With Model Office’s recent business trip to Australia in mind, this week we focus on how the new era of accountability within financial services seems to be sweeping through regulatory authorities world wide like wild fire.
Any one heard of the SS Eastland? No, thought not, well this was a ship built in the same guise as the Titanic and suffered MORE passenger deaths due to unintended consequences of regulations. The ship toppled over in Chicago harbor due to the fact it had complied with the Laffollette’s Seaman’s act 1915 and that applied to each ship having enough lifeboats for its passengers. The problem? The increased number made the Eastland top heavy, it rolled to its side killing 844 passengers compared to the Titanic’s 818.
Such a loaded questions isn’t it? Yet this is a crucial question we always ask when meeting retail investment adviser firms in the market place. Compliance, as financial advice, is not an exact science and is heavily nuanced and sensitive given the amount of rules and regulations firms are contending with against the background of the FCA’s principle based framework.
The FCA published its Business Plan 2019/20 on 17 April 2019, setting out 8 cross-sector priorities, as well as seven priorities for specific regulated sectors. The plan outlines the FCA’s priorities for the year ahead and describes its response to identified issues, covering supervisory priorities as well as market studies and the policy work the FCA plans to undertake through the course of the next 12 months.
We have written extensively about the SM&CR being the most personally impactful pieces of regulation to hit retail financial services industry in decades, yet what is also apparent is there are some unintended consequences that the industry needs to address and include in their implementation processes.