The debate over the Retail Distribution Review continued apace with Whitechurch chief executive, Kean Seager, predicting it could kill off up to 20 per cent of the intermediary market.
Skandia supported a split between advice and sales but that is should be applied across the whole of the financial services market. Sesame called for advisers planning to retire in the next 10 years to be relieved of the requirement to achieve diploma equivalent qualifications.
Aegon chief executive, Otto Thoresen, branded the RDR as too complex and that the industry was trying to deal with too many things at once.
But change could be in the offing as new FSA chairman, Adair Turner, described the RDR as ‘ongoing,’ and that he would also scrutinise the TCF requirements when he takes up his new post in September.
Amanda Bowe is to step down from her role as FSA head of RDR after the feedback statement is published in October.
Elsewhere, HBOS claimed the FSA did not know what form ‘management information’ should take by the March deadline for firms to have Treating Customer Fairly procedures in place and AIFA said the FSA would have difficulty in proving the cost/benefit of the TCF initiative.
Meanwhile, the Government said the Personal Accounts Delivery Authority (PADA) would be given significant state funding, with only a long term objective to become self funding. It said this was justifiable on the grounds that the scheme would have to accept workers whom commercial pension providers would find unviable.
But in a backdown on its original proposals, PADA said employers will be able to use their existing methods of calculating pay when working out whether they will be exempt from placing employees into personal accounts from 2012.
The row over delays by insurers in making annuity payments rumbled on, with some firms calling for the worst offenders to be named and shamed.
Living Time marketing director, Dave Harris, called for the open market option (OMO) to be the default option for people buying annuities nd urged IFAs to spurn annuity commission when clients purchased one from their existing provider without advice.
Retirement Partnership managing director, Steve Lewis, suggested that insurers should inform pension investors of the OMO facility five years before retirement. Meanwhile the ABI is considering cigarette packet style warnings on pension marketing material as a way to encourage greater uptake of the facility to shop around.
Elsewhere, AIFA said it believed the FSA was considering bringing in a 15-year long stop for customer complaints, despite the RDR interim report erring against it.
There was much excitement about the business opportunities presented by the easing of the protected rights self investment rules from 1 October, with industry experts predicting a boom in Sipp business. There’s an estimated £100bn sitting in personal pension protected rights and a further £250bn in contracted-out final salary schemes.
But the new rules will only apply to Sipps and not SSASs and Scottish Widows expressed concern that those in low cost pensions might be mis-advised to transfer into Sipps.
Elsewhere, Fitch Ratings predicted that early entrants to the variable annuity market could be the big winners as this new form of annuity could become a quasi-replacement for with profits.
The trade press unearthed past legal skirmishes that Dolly and Brian Pickering of IFA firm, Heather Moor & Edgecomb, have had with the FSA and the Appeal Court. Only weeks ago, the couple were hailed as IFA champions for refusing to pay FOS fees for four customer complaints which were not upheld by the Ombudsman.
Meanwhile, Clerical Medical did a swift U-turn on its cancellation of trail commission where advisers were not offering ongoing service. Elsewhere, industry experts predicted a fall-off in mortgage procuration fees.
A survey by MetLife showed that two thirds of IFAs’ clients were seeking different ways of planning for retirement as a result of stock market volatility.
The Parliamentary Ombudsman at long last recommended that Equitable Life policyholders should receive compensation for losses, with late joiners expected to be the most likely to benefit from any lifeboat fund.
Comments
Trackbacks