FT Adviser

The steep rise in popularity of sustainable investment solutions has led to a similar rise in valuations in many of the qualifying asset classes. On top of this many of the companies which address environmental or social problems tend to be technology businesses - which are more attractive for their growth characteristics rather than for their value. In this special episode of the FTAdviser Podcas...

The self-employed - and particularly younger gig economy workers - desperately need some solid pension solutions to help them make long-term provision for their retirement.  Joining Simoney Kyriakou, senior editor for FTAdviser, are some of the pensions world’s great and good: Jamie Jenkins, director of policy and external affairs for Royal London; Jonathan Greer, head of retirement policy at...

Finding new clients at any time in a financial adviser’s working life can be a challenge, but imagine having to do that at the beginning of your career, at the start of the lockdown last year. This week, deputy features editor Ima Jackson-Obot talks to Emma Prince, an adviser at Quilter Financial Advisers, who previously worked in banking, and James Wallace from David James Wealth, a former pensio...

This week the FTAdviser Podcast speaks to Keith Richards, the chief executive of the Personal Finance Society, who will be standing down at the end of this month after nearly nine years in the role. During this time he was involved in the Financial Advice Market Review process, he established the PFS's pro-bono advice schemes and helped set up the European Financial Planning Association. He joins...

This FTAdviser In Focus podcast aims to do two things: to look at the reason why investment trusts have proved to be good income plays for pension investors, and to understand why the investment trust universe can provide sustainable long-term returns.  Joining Simoney Kyriakou, senior editor of FTAdviser, on this podcast is Annabel Brodie-Smith, communications director for the Associati...

The government is looking to make it mandatory for providers to issue simpler statements for certain defined contribution pension schemes used as part of auto-enrolment.  But as the proposals stop short of making providers include costs and charges, there still remains disparity across the industry. This week reporter Amy Austin is joined by Claire Trott, head of pensions strategy at St James...

Property investment - be it buy-to-let or commercial property funds - has had a rough time over the past few years. Questions over the liquidity not just of pure bricks and mortar but also issues with daily dealing property unit trusts have caused a lot of concern to investors. There have been fund suspensions following the Brexit vote in 2016 and then again in 2020 as Covid bit into market valuat...

The Financial Conduct Authority has published proposals for what it calls a "new consumer duty" which it says will set clearer and higher expectations for firms' standards of care towards consumers. The regulator has said it is concerned about firms providing information which is misleading or difficult to understand, and products or services which don't represent value. It says it wants firms to...

Victims of defined benefit transfer misadvice are facing a double whammy when it comes to compensation calculations. According to campaigners supporting those who have been found by the regulators and compensatory bodies to have been wrongly advised to transfer out, not only do they face wildly differing levels of compensation, depending on when the calculations are carried out, but they also have...

Mark Carney, the former governor of the Bank of England, famously said open-ended funds which invest in illiquid assets are "built on a lie". This has been particularly evident with property funds, which have been forced to open and close themselves to redemptions repeatedly over the past few years, first in response to Brexit and then because of the coronavirus pandemic. To fix this this the Fina...

Joe Biden has now marked more than 100 days of his term as President of the United States. While he has been a lot quieter on Twitter than his predecessor, that is not for a lack of activity. President Biden has signed a $1.9tn stimulus package, put together a $2tn package of infrastructure spending and unveiled a $1.8tn package of reforms on issues such as healthcare and labour laws. By common co...

One of the clichés of the 21st century is to say data is the new oil but, like a lot of clichés, there's a kernel of truth in there struggling to come out. Indeed companies like Facebook have turned data into an awful lot of money and an awful lot of controversy. But what does this mean for advisers? How can they put the data they hold to good use to improve the service they offer? And what are th...

Exceptionally low interest rates, a high level of economic uncertainty and elevated valuations across multiple asset classes have combined with the Covid-19 pandemic to make this a tricky time for all investors, but particularly for those looking for an income. Many companies cut their dividends as they faced the uncertainty of the pandemic, with Shell cutting its dividend for the first...

The government has said it will be reviewing the pension advice allowance - which was introduced following the Financial Advice Market Review to help close the advice gap - after most major providers said they either didn't offer it or saw little or no interest. Pensions minister Guy Opperman has admitted the allowance, currently set at £1,500 over three years, was "too low to get an efficacious o...

Millions of Britons are being affected by "ill-thought-out rules, which have come into force for the private sector. Whether these are freelancers, concerned about how the rule might be assessed, or businesses worried about how they assess the tax status of every freelance contractor they hire, IR35 has posed problems for both advisers and their clients.  Joining Simoney Kyriakou, senior edit...

Earlier this year the Financial Conduct Authority announced plans to review the controversial 10 per cent drop rule, which was introduced by Mifid II in 2018 and means clients must be informed when their portfolios drop by 10 per cent or more. The rule has been suspended since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic due to increased market volatility, a suspension which the FCA has said will contin...

Last month marked five years since the final report of the Financial Advice Market Review was published. The review was commissioned by HM Treasury to find measures to close the advice gap and enable the development of affordable and accessible financial advice - but in the five years since not much has changed and by some measures the advice gap has actually grown. And earlier this year the gover...

Pensions taxation in the UK has been tinkered around with for years. Over the decades, different laws have shaped pensions legislation, making what should be a simple concept – helping people to save more for their retirement – extremely complicated.  With this in mind, Simoney Kyriakou, senior editor of FTAdviser, spoke with three industry specialists to ask them to think the unthinkable abo...

Since 2007, the number of private-rented households has grown by 60% as house prices have soared but incomes stagnated following the financial crisis. This growing cohort of renters has become known as 'Generation Rent', but what does this mean for the protection market? Homeowners across the UK are already underprotected and renters even more so, but since protection is traditionally sold at...

Last week HM Treasury published a raft of consultations into tax policy, in a follow-up to the Budget which was branded 'tax day'. But like many sequels, it didn't quite live up to the hype. While some were anticipating changes to inheritance tax and capital gains tax - and there were even rumours of significant reform to pensions tax relief - in reality most of the Treasury's proposals were admin...

The role of pensions minister tends to change hands regularly but since his appointment in 2017 Guy Opperman has become the second-longest serving person in that position - second to Sir Steve Webb. Earlier this year he guided the Pensions Act into law, which included long-awaited rules around pension dashboards, collective defined contribution schemes, and new powers for The Pensions Regulator. T...

The past few years have been a turbulent one for British companies, with the Brexit negotiations followed by coronavirus lockdowns. And the UK is often caricatured as home to big financial services or commodities companies - many of which face structural challenges - but not to tech start-ups. But what opportunities are there in the UK? In this special edition of the FTAdviser Podcast, sponsored b...

Inheritance tax is being lined up for a long-overdue overhaul, following recommendations by the Office for Tax Simplification. Wryly described as a ‘voluntary tax’, the limits have barely been touched for over a decade, while only minor tinkering around residential nil rate bands has been part of Budget announcements in recent years. But all this is about to change -...

Exactly a year ago, prime minister Boris Johnson began placing the UK into lockdown, closing pubs, cafes and restaurants as the coronavirus pandemic took hold. A few days later he would tell the UK population to stay at home. A year on from these dramatic events, many advisers have changed the way they run their businesses and meet their clients. On this week's podcast, FTAdviser digital editor Da...

Last week chancellor of the exchequer Rishi Sunak announced an extension to the stamp duty holiday and a government guarantee scheme to encourage lenders to start offering high loan-to-value mortgages again, after the disruption of the Covid-19 pandemic. This week Damian Fantato, digital editor of FTAdviser, is joined by Danny Belton, head of lender relationships at Legal & General Mortgage Cl...