Good morning and welcome to your Morning Briefing for Monday 18 November 2024. To get this in your inbox every morning click here.
UK to spend more this Christmas compared to previous two years
Compared to 2023 and 2022, those in the UK will spend more on Christmas this year partly due to the easing of inflation according to Hargreaves Lansdown research.
On average, £611 will be spent on Christmas this year, up from £569 last year and £576 a year earlier.
In Focus: How technology can unlock the potential of mentoring
One way to help people develop their career in advice is by providing a mentoring scheme — enabling them to tap into the professional knowledge, experience and support of others who want to ‘give something back’.
That said, traditional mentoring is difficult to scale, which limits the number who can benefit from it.
Can technology streamline the process to help it reach more people and create a better experience for everyone involved?
Quote Of The Day
The IHT rule change will transform the way some savers think about their pensions and funding retirement. Many retirees, and especially those close to and above age 75, will be revising what to do with their pension pots and that will probably lead to more pension savings being drawn down
– Evelyn Partners financial planning partner and retirement specialist Gary Smith on Chancellor Reeves announcement that defined contribution pension pots will be included in estates’ inheritance tax liabilities from April 2027.
Stat Attack
Research from Charles Stanley shows the reaction from self-directed DIY investors to Rachel Reeves first Budget.
38%
of investors believe the announcements in the Budget will help UK investors in the long-run it will, and 41% believe it will not.
38%
of DIY investors have already made specific stock picks that they believe will benefit from the Budget.
32%
have accelerated their plans to move their wealth abroad as a result of the Budget.
33%
said that the Budget has made them more interested in investing in the Alternative Investment Market (AIM).
26%
have hired a financial adviser to help them manage their money as a result of the Budget.
Source: Charles Stanley
In Other News
Standard Life, part of Phoenix Group, has announced the appointment of Alexa Mitterhuber who joins the Defined Benefit Solutions team as director of Defined Benefit Solutions.
Mitterhuber brings over 11 years’ of industry experience, having joined from M&G where she specialised in corporate risk solutions following M&G’s re-entry into the BPA market.
Prior to this, she held various roles at Legal & General and Mercer, working across pensions insurance, pensions, and investment consulting.
Standard Life said: “This appointment reinforces our commitment to providing industry-leading de-risking solutions to pension schemes and trustees. It also follows a successful first half of 2024, where the business wrote £1.7bn worth of bulk purchase annuity premiums, and more recently announced the completion of £250m of buy-ins with the Halma Group Pension Plan.
“With a strong pipeline of BPA opportunities, this continued growth provides even greater depth of expertise available within the team, and ensures it is well-positioned to continue meeting ongoing demand for DB de-risking solutions.”
Headwinds hit Trump-fueled rally in US stocks (Reuters)
Government could force pension funds to invest more in UK assets (Financial Times)
Starmer to meet Xi using growth push to justify UK-China thaw (Bloomberg)
Did You See?
The Personal Finance Society (PFS) has apologised after an error nullified the votes of 83 members at its annual general meeting on 11 November.
The “human error”, by its third-party support provider Lumi, related to item three on the agenda, which was to re-elect Carla Brown as PFS president.
During the live voting, Lumi mistakenly gave members the option to vote for former PFS president Anthony Ward, who stood down in September, instead of Brown.
In an email sent to affected members, seen by Money Marketing, PFS chair Christine Elliott said she was “deeply sorry” to inform them that their vote had been voided.
She added: “It is with much regret that our third-party AGM support provider, Lumi, incorrectly entered Anthony Ward’s name for the voting that took place on the day of the AGM, instead of Carla Brown’s.”
She assured members that the removal of the 83 votes does not change the overall result reported at the AGM, as votes that were cast ahead of the day were not affected.
