Good morning and welcome to your Morning Briefing for Wednesday 20 November 2024. To get this in your inbox every morning click here.
Platforms Association expands
The Platforms Association has expanded to 46 founding members, less than two months after it was launched.
The founding members comprise of several high-profile firms, including Abrdn, Aviva, Aegon, Fidelity, Quilter, Scottish Widows and Hargreaves Lansdown, among others.
Inflation creeps back up
The Consumer Prices Index (CPI) rose by 2.3% in the 12 months to October 2024, up from 1.7% in September, the latest Office for National Statistics (ONS) data has revealed.
Meanwhile, the Consumer Prices Index including owner occupiers’ housing costs (CPIH) rose by 3.2% in the 12 months to October 2024, up from 2.6% in September.
FCA/FOS ‘modernisation’ attempt
Friday’s joint call for input from the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) and Financial Conduct Authority into how they can work together to modernise the redress system appears to be an attempt to put on a united front despite underlying tensions, says Punter Southall Law’s Stuart Brothers.
It claims that, “The current redress framework works well for individual customer complaints about specific issues” and any “challenges” are confined to “mass redress events” (a term upon which it later seeks input as to what it actually means).
If not provocative, then the underlying assumption that all is otherwise working well portrays a lack of awareness.
Quote Of The Day
The government’s decision to dramatically increase the range of assets and estates hit by IHT in the budget could spur a new wave of evasion and avoidance of this tax
– Neela Chauhan, Partner at UHY Hacker Young, on the implications of the chancellor’s recent Budget
Stat Attack
Private-school parents are considering taking their children out of their schools after the government decision to impose VAT on school fees from 1 January next year, new research from Premium Credit’s School Fee Plan has revealed.
14%
of private-school parents are considering taking their children out of their schools.
37%
say the decision to add VAT at 20% to fees will have no impact on their ability to pay.
50%
believe funding fees will become ‘much more difficult’ or ‘more difficult’ as a result of the government decision.
20%
of state-school parents say they are considering sending children to private schools.
51%
of parents of under-5s say they are considering sending children to private schools.
13%
of the state-school parents considering private schools have given up on any plans to send their children there.
53%
of parents of under-5s considering private schools have revised their plans.
9%
say they would not send all their children to private schools as a result.
Source: Premium Credit
In Other News
Liontrust has strengthened its data management, delivery and analysis across the business through the implementation of an enterprise portfolio management system that is integrated with a new data ecosystem.
The new technology solution improves investment and risk tools, enables productivity gains and enhances the information supplied to Liontrust’s investment teams and clients.
It will also strengthen reporting and digital services while providing scalability for Liontrust.
The enhancements have been achieved by implementing an integrated solution through collaboration with BlackRock’s Aladdin platform and The Bank of New York Mellon Corporation (BNY).
Liontrust will leverage BlackRock’s Aladdin technology in combination with BNY’s Data Vault and other strategic partner systems.
It will use this to deliver comprehensive portfolio and risk-management capabilities, built on the foundation of a unified and consistent source of investment data, and leveraged across fund management teams, asset classes and funds.
Neuberger Berman, a private, independent, employee-owned investment manager, has hired Paul Grainger as managing director and senior portfolio manager, fixed income.
Neuberger Berman, with $509bn total assets under management, has $232bn in fixed income assets under management.
With more than 195 investment professionals globally, Neuberger Berman’s fixed income platform is characterised by its depth, experience and a collaborative approach to managing client portfolios.
The platform is globally integrated and highly collaborative, which we believe allows for investment insights across regions to be reflected in portfolios.
With more than 25 years’ experience, Grainger joins from Schroders, where he most recently served as head of global fixed income and currency.
HSBC to open London ‘wealth centre’ in effort to draw in premier clients (The Guardian)
‘Trump bump’ makes Paul Taubman Wall Street’s newest billionaire (Financial Times)
Debut of Bitcoin ETF options is latest boost for crypto from US (Bloomberg)
Did You See?
The Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) is set to pay out £372m in 2024/25 – £9m more than it forecast – due to a rise in “highly complex” advice claims.
Its interim CEO, Martyn Beauchamp, said the increase was largely down to progress on claims decision volumes.
“Over two-thirds of our advice claims are now considered highly complex, doubling from one third a few years ago,” Beauchamp said in the FSCS November 2024 Outlook report.
“Claims increasingly require more specialist resource, deeper investigation and more time to complete, with data-gathering challenges a key driver of claim timescales.
“We’re continually working hard to identify areas where we can optimise the time taken to complete a claim without significantly increasing costs.”
