Good morning and welcome to your Morning Briefing for Monday 30 October 2023. To get this in your inbox every morning click here.
Abrdn completes platform upgrade
Abrdn has completed the “biggest and most complex upgrade” of its platform since Wrap launched in 2006 and has further developments in the pipeline.
The platform’s boss is confident the work carried out on its AdviserOS offering will be “game-changing” for the market.
With Abrdn having almost completed its separation from the nearly 200-year-old Standard Life brand – sold to Phoenix Group in 2021 – it is now able to turn its attention to what matters most, Noel Butwell told Money Marketing.
Musk targets financial services
Elon Musk has “thrown down the gauntlet” to all financial services sectors, and advice firms must rise to the challenge.
On Friday, US-based tech news site The Verge reported on a call to X employees, in which Musk set out plans for X, formerly Twitter, to become a one-stop shop for all of people’s financial needs.
Financial Technology Research Centre director Ian McKenna said: “The key question here is, can the established advice sector capture the opportunity to provide mass affluent and mass market advice, or will it be left clear for new entrants to reap the benefits?”
Paul Lewis talks SJP and Consumer Duty
“The Consumer Duty is three months old and has already been credited with changing the fee structure at St James’ Place (SJP), one of Britain’s most popular advisers, for the better,” says Paul Lewis.
“By which I mean, of course, cheaper – at least for some clients on some products at some point in the future. Which is good news for its 941,000 clients and the £158bn of their money it holds.”
In Conversation With…Kerry Seymour
For this episode, host Lois Vallely talks to Kerry Seymour – a clinical hypnotherapist and mental health trainer – about the link between money and mental health.
She also delves into why it is important for financial advisers to understand the difference between decisions made with the ‘intellectual brain’ and those made with the ‘primal brain’.
Quote Of The Day
The UK’s ambitious climate goals are under threat due to a lack of practical and detailed plans.
– Amanda Blanc, group chief executive of Aviva, comments on the business’s latest annual climate-ready index, which highlighted a “mixed picture” for the UK’s overall progress in adapting to and mitigating climate change
Stat Attack
The crypto market continues to settle at the levels it broke through at the beginning of last week.
7.7%
At the start of the day on Monday the crypto market capitalisation was higher than seven days ago, largely thanks to Bitcoin.
70
The Crypto Fear and Greed Index spent the second half of last week at its highest level since November 2021
11%
Amount by which Bitcoin is up in the past seven days
$34,800-35,800
Amount at which Bitcoin has mostly traded between since Tuesday, after hitting highs in May last year
6.74%
Amount by which total assets under management (AUM) for digital asset-based investment products rose in October, to $31.7bn
11.1%
Amount by which bitcoin fund AUM increased in the same time, to $23.2bn
73.3%
Amount of the market instruments based on Bitcoin now hold
70.5%
This is up on their market share a month earlier
Source: FxPro
In Other News
Evelyn Partners has appointed Katrina Brown as a director of responsible investment.
A University of Oxford graduate, Brown joined Morgan Grenfell Asset Management (later Deutsche Asset Management) where she was director of global equities.
Since 2002 she has pursued a consulting career, with a focus on charities and pension funds.
This has allowed her to develop a specialism in responsible investment and, more recently, climate change and TCFD assessments.
She will join the team at Evelyn Partners, which is focusing on the incorporation of ESG factors into the investment process.
The firm is working to reflect these priorities within its active ownership programme by encouraging companies to improve business practices.
SimplyBiz has announced the appointment of Simon Lovell and Kris Armstrong to its compliance team to “further strengthen the support available” to its member firms around regulatory policy and mortgage compliance.
Lovell has joined SimplyBiz as mortgage compliance manager.
He has a wealth of experience in the mortgage market, having previously undertaken supervisory roles with Pink Home Loans and PRIMIS Mortgage Network and a field compliance role within TMA, developing compliance propositions and providing support and guidance to directly authorised firms.
In his new role, he will be supporting advisers with compliance and T&C, working closely with the SimplyBiz Mortgages team, representing the compliance team at mortgage events around the country, and engaging with lender partners.
Armstrong also recently joined SimplyBiz in the role of compliance policy manager.
During his fifteen years in the sector, he has held positions including branch manager at Lloyds Bank, paraplanner at Lycetts, independent mortgage adviser, and IFA at WPS Advisory.
At SimplyBiz, he is a key part of the policy team, analysing the latest output from the regulator, understanding what it will mean for advisers, and communicating the key headlines and action points to member firms.
Huge ethnicity pension gap revealed in UK figures (Guardian)
Bank of England expected to leave rates unchanged (Financial Times)
HSBC launches $3bn buyback, profit disappoints on rising costs (Reuters)
Did You See?
Personal Finance Society (PFS) member Alasdair Walker has reignited his campaign to “save” the organisation and urged the board to “act in the best interests of members”.
Walker launched the ‘Our PFS’ campaign during the so-called “Christmas coup” at the end of last year.
On Friday morning (27 October), Walker sent an open letter to the PFS, demanding that it “seek an immediate transfer of all PFS funds to an account in the sole name and control of PFS”.
He sent an email to around 600 members who have signed up to his mailing list for the ‘Our PFS’ campaign, highlighting the letter and asking them to sign it.
