Regulation is making London lose ground to other jurisdictions, JP Morgan Asset Manager CEO EMEA Patrick Thomson has said.
He was speaking at the Investment Association’s annual conference on 20 June in London.
Thomson said that rising costs are reducing London’s status as the premier international financial centre in the world.
Vanguard Europe managing director Sean Hagerty speaking at the same event added that “consumers are very confused and regulation is partly to blame”.
AXA Investment Manager UK CEO Marcello Arona agreed with both Thomson and Hagerty.
He said “regulation is getting more and more complicated” whereas it needs to provide “simplicity and clarity”.
Still, Arona was “confident” that creating dialogue with regulators can lead to a “better world” with improved regulation.
One piece of regulation that Hagerty agreed with was the Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA) Retail Distribution Review (RDR) that was introduced on 31 December 2012.
Hagerty said that RDR “made things more transparent”.
Thomson described the ideal regulatory environment as he sees it.
“We do not want low standards, we still need a high level of regulation, but it should also be the right amount of regulation.”
A piece of financial regulation that has received a lot of attention is the Consumer Duty with the rules coming into effect on 31 July 2023.
It aims to set higher standards of consumer protection across all retail financial services.
Hagerty also spoke about artificial intelligence (AI) and said that the productivity gains from the technology are huge.
It also lowers the costs and is “still using humans at this early stage” in its evolution.
Arona also said that technology “will make asset managers more democratic” in the future.
Schroders global head of strategy and solutions Charles Prideaux had a strong message for delegates.
This was to “embrace technology” and that “AI is definitely part of that”.
