Good morning and welcome to your Morning Briefing for Friday 12 May, 2023. To get this in your inbox every morning click here.
Wren Sterling boosts Northern Ireland presence
National IFA firm Wren Sterling has consolidated its presence in Northern Ireland with an acquisition and merger of two adviser firms.
Ralston Bennett Financial Planning and its appointed representative business, Aspects Financial, will combine to create Wren Sterling’s first permanent base in Northern Ireland.
The two firms, which will be in Holywood and Newtownards, comprise seven financial advisers between them.
They serve clients across Northern Ireland in the private and corporate client markets respectively.
Helping women build better pensions
“The cards really are stacked against women in the pension world. Not only do they lose out in private pensions; they get less state pension too.
“Advisers should help women check their state pension and make the most of all available National Insurance (NI) credits.
“Making sure women who — themselves or their partner — earn over the £60,000 means-tested limit apply for child benefit they are not entitled to, to avoid losing credit for their state pension, is vital.”
Quote Of The Day
The combination of upward revisions to inflation forecasts and improved growth outlook is hawkish for monetary policy.
–Janet Mui, head of market analysis at wealth manager RBC Brewin Dolphin,commenting on Bank of England’s 25-basis point rate increase.
Stat Attack
Financial consultancy firm Lang Cat’s 2023 Advice Gap report takes an in-depth study into the drivers behind people taking advice and the barriers that prevent the majority of the population from doing so. The consumer research, conducted by YouGov, shows that:
11 %
of British adults have paid for financial advice in the last two years
60 %
of this cohort received ongoing advice
38 %
received one-off advice. The remainder don’t know or can’t recall.
88 %
believe it represents good value for money.
16%
of respondents say they are fairly or very likely to pay for advice in the future. Within this cohort, 38% say lack of trust is a barrier.
3.12 million
people would pay for advice if trust could be improved.
39 %
of advice firms claim they have a specific proposition for low value clients
59
the mean average client age for traditional advice firms
Source:Lang Cat’s 2023 Advice Gap report
In Other News
Novia Financial has appointed Lucy Bristow as its first ever chief customer officer, with immediate effect.
Bristow will oversee the customer experience teams across Novia and Wealthtime and will focus on delivering exceptional service to advisers. She will report directly to chief executive Patrick Mill.
This latest appointment, and that of Eden Scrivenger as chief technology officer in September last year, will ensure the business delivers on Mill’s ambitions for great service, true digitisation, and deeper connectivity.
Bristow moved to Novia from the Wealthtime platform in March last year to take up the role of Strategic Partnerships Director with responsibility for senior relationships with strategic adviser partnerships across the Group and she had more recently stepped into the role of People Experience Director.
To support Bristow, Nicola Clark, who previously worked at Novia’s sister platform Amber, rejoins the business as customer service transformation lead. Clark will look after the customer service executive team and will report into Bristow.
The Openwork Partnership has appointed Warren Vickers as commercial development director.
Vickers, who reports reporting into managing director Stuart Dodson, will be responsible for commercial services in this role.
He will oversee a growing team supporting members of the Openwork Partnership. A core part of his remit will include, working with the recently launched partnership development managers as well as the partnership’s contract services team.
Vickers brings significant experience to the role. He was previously managing director at Tenet Compliance Services for the last 2 years. Prior to this, he worked in several senior financial services roles in the UK and Asia- Pacific, including TCC where he was the commercial director with Exco responsibility.
Progeny has appointed Freya Robertson to the new role of chief of staff to CEO Neil Moles as part of its management restructure.
Robertson has spent four years as executive assistant to the chief executive.
In the new role, she will expand her responsibility for managing relationships at a senior level, overseeing governance and management information, ensuring effective communication between management tiers and supporting the CEO with strategic thinking.
From Elsewhere
UK economy shrank 0.3% in March, ONS figures show (Sky news)
Almost two-thirds of young women have been sexually harassed at work, says TUC (The Guardian)
Elon musk says he has found new Twitter CEO (Reuters)
Did You See?
“Readers of Money Marketing whose canines are longer than those of a tired old nag will no doubt remember how some of us equally long-toothed journalists were banging on about the misselling of personal pensions during the late 1980s and early 1990s.
“Upwards of two million people were wrongly advised to either leave or transfer their defined benefit (DB) pensions and sink their money into money purchase schemes instead.
“Putting things vaguely right cost the industry more than £12bn — a hugely expensive lesson for all concerned.”
