Money

The Morning Briefing: Annuities hit new highs; Transact adopts Cash ISA transfer service

Published

5 hours ago

September 24, 2024

The Morning Briefing: Phoenix Group scraps plans to sell protection business; advisers tweak processes

Good morning and welcome to your Morning Briefing for Tuesday 24 September 2024. To get this in your inbox every morning click here.

Annuity comparison quotes hit new highs in 2024

Pensions technology provider iPipeline has reported a significant rise in demand for annuities among financial advisers.

In the first half of 2024, annuity quotes increased by 12% compared to the same period in 2023, marking the highest demand since iPipeline began tracking in 2013.

This follows a record 60% year-on-year rise in adviser annuity comparisons on its platform in 2023.

Transact adopts electronic Cash ISA transfer service

Transact has become the first intermediary platform to adopt an electronic Cash Isa transfer service via Pay.UK (BACS) and Equisoft.

This simplifies the transfer process by enabling seamless information exchanges between Transact, banks and building societies, removing the need for paper-based transfers.

Previously, transferring a Cash Isa required sending paper instructions to banks, locating processing teams and manually completing the steps.

Financial Adviser 2B: Questions to ask prospective employers in a job interview

There is often a point during job interviews where the candidate is asked if they have any questions to put to the employer.

This part of an interview can be overlooked during preparations — but asking the right questions can help a prospective employee decide if the role is a good fit for them, while showing the employer that the candidate genuinely wants a career in advice.

So, what are the best questions to ask?

Quote Of The Day

She left the conference in no doubt that painful decisions are coming – although the country remains in the dark on where exactly the axe will fall

– Tom Selby, director of public policy at AJ Bell, comments on Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ conference speech ahead of the 30 October Budget

Stat Attack

New research from talent solutions firm Robert Walters reveals that 52% of Gen-Z professionals reject the idea of becoming middle managers, a phenomenon dubbed ‘conscious unbossing’.

72%

of Gen-Z professionals would choose an individual route to progression over managing others.

63%

of professionals think senior professionals value middle management more than their younger peers.

69%

of Gen-Z professionals say middle management is too ‘high stress, low reward’.

Double the amount

of Gen-Z professionals would opt for a flat structure over a hierarchical one.

89%

of employers still think that middle managers play a crucial role in their organisation.

Source: Robert Walters

In Other News

Unbiased, the UK’s top platform for finding financial advisers, has announced a new integration with intelliflo.

This upgrade automatically transfers accepted leads to an adviser’s intelliflo account, improving efficiency by reducing manual tasks.

The feature is available to firms on Standard, Enhanced, Premium and Enterprise plans.

Iain Thomson, chief product officer of Unbiased, said: “We are dedicated to enhancing our platform so that we can offer the best possible experience to our customers.

“This integration with intelliflo is a demonstration of our ongoing efforts and investment in improving our offering and supporting growth in the industry.

“The API will help make converting leads into clients even easier with faster contact rates and improved cadence.”

The European Fund and Asset Management Association (EFAMA) has released a new report in its Market Insights series, focusing on the growth of sustainable equity UCITS.

Titled ‘Sustainable equity UCITS: promoting sustainable business models’, the report offers an in-depth look at market trends and investor behaviour.

Sustainable equity UCITS now account for 24% of all sustainable UCITS, up from 15% in 2019, with net assets growing from €0.6trn to €1.3trn over the past five years.

Despite economic challenges and market volatility, these funds have shown resilience, particularly in 2021, when net inflows reached €231bn. While inflows dipped slightly in 2022 and 2023, demand remains strong.

The report highlights that 70% of these funds are classified as Article 8 under the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR), with 20% falling under the stricter Article 9 category.

This distribution reflects investor caution due to ongoing regulatory uncertainty, though the SFDR review is expected to offer greater clarity.

Sustainable equity UCITS have also delivered positive net performances, on par with their non-sustainable counterparts, while often offering cost advantages.

The report underscores the growing investor confidence in sustainable investment as a viable and profitable option.

Vera Jotanovic, senior economist at EFAMA, commented: “Sustainable equity UCITS not only encompass a wide range of sustainability themes catering to varied investor preferences, but are also a resilient investment product with competitive returns. This makes them an attractive option for investors.”

Anyve Arakelijan, policy adviser at EFAMA, added: “As the regulatory landscape evolves, we expect the sustainable finance framework to become more investor-centric, resolve inconsistencies with other EU regulations, and provide greater support for transition finance, further driving sustainable progress and achieving the EU’s long-term sustainability goals.”

China unveils raft of measures to boost economy (BBC News)

Growth softens across UK businesses in September, PMI shows (Reuters)

‘Get a grip’: why has the UK’s Labour government been so bad at politics? (Financial Times)

Did You See?

The Platforms Association launched yesterday (23 September) to represent and provide a voice to the £1trn investment platform sector.

The launch marks a step change in how the platform industry will engage with regulators and policymakers.

It aims to bring a united voice to co-ordinate and promote industry interests.

Several high-profile investment platforms, including Abrdn, Aegon, Fidelity, Quilter, Seccl and SS&C, are represented on the board and leadership council

Membership will be open to UK and European regulated firms whose primary activities are the settlement, custody and safe keeping of retail investor assets.

It will also be open to regulated sub-custodian firms providing dealing and safe-keeping services to organisations acting on behalf of retail investors.

Read the full story here.

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Money

Paraplanning steps out of the shadows

Published

1 hour ago

September 24, 2024

NewsAdmin

It may be surprising, but it appears more people have considered becoming a senior paraplanner than a financial adviser.

Research from recruitment platform Indeed, with the St. James’s Place (SJP) Financial Adviser Academy, found just 4% of respondents had considered becoming a financial adviser, while 9% had considered becoming a senior paraplanner.

The research looked at attitudes towards careers among over 4,000 UK workers, highlighting a good salary, work/life balance and the opportunity to work from home as factors that create the ideal role.

This data was combined with job searches to produce a list of 10 of the best careers people have never considered. Senior paraplanner was second on the list, while financial adviser was fourth.

Broad appeal

This may go against the grain of expectations, as you would think advisers would have a higher profile among the general public as they are more client facing.

However, Gee Foottit, senior manager, partnerships, at the SJP Academy, points out we cannot draw conclusions about the level of public awareness for either role, as the research only shows whether respondents had considered these careers for themselves.

Foottit acknowledges the common perception is that advisers have the dominant career but people also have out-of-date perceptions of advisers as male economics graduates in suits who work in the City.

“Women make fantastic financial advisers,” she says. “The skills required can be more difficult to train people in – things like emotional intelligence, being inquisitive and feeling at ease to ask questions.”

Foottit says that while men – who outnumber women as advisers 80/20 – can certainly have these attributes, more women tend to already possess them.

It is widely accepted paraplanning has more of an equal gender split and commentators suggest this is because there are elements that appeal to everyone.

People whose main focus is to drive their career forward have pathways to follow, perhaps moving into financial advice.

Versatility and flexibility

The versatility of paraplanning also enables people to flexibly juggle work with the demands of bringing up children, while still having job satisfaction and options to progress in the future, when their families are more self-sufficient.

Although being an adviser also offers many of these benefits, there is a feeling the advice role is more defined, while paraplanning can be moulded around the needs of businesses and individuals.

Liam Chapman-Lyes, senior paraplanner at Succession Wealth, believes this is why the gender split is more balanced in paraplanning relative to advice.

“Paraplanners have worked from home since Covid – technology has opened up the role across the whole country rather than locally. And you don’t have to worry about client calls and working out of hours,” he says.

“You can do your hours, switch off at the end of the day and it’s less stressful.”

That is not to say men do not appreciate the flexibility and versatility that paraplanning offers. Chapman-Lyes has spent the last seven years building a career in paraplanning.

At Succession Wealth, there are different roles within paraplanning, such as associate paraplanner and senior paraplanner. This enables the firm’s paraplanners to occupy ‘light advice roles’ where they combine technical work behind the scenes with client engagement or cashflow planning.

“Paraplanning didn’t really exist 20 years ago but it has developed so much in the last 10 years. Now there are pathways for qualifying as a financial planner or staying in a paraplanner role – you can choose,” says Chapman-Lyes.

“I have bit of client contact – I speak to clients over email, assist on drafting the advice and cashflow modelling – but there’s lots of scope to do more.”

A growing profession

While hosting the Personal Finance Society’s (PFS) Purely Paraplanning Conference in April, Altus Consulting platforms consulting director Amira Norris was struck by the realisation that the paraplanning community is ‘growing and thriving’.

“Once seen as a stop gap to becoming an adviser or a way to promote administrators, paraplanning has evolved over the last decade or so to become a respected and valued career in its own right,” she says.

“The main institutes now all recognise paraplanning as a career path, with dedicated qualifications pathways and initiatives, such as the PFS Paraplanning Panel and the CISI paraplanner award.

“The role of a paraplanner has become invaluable to advice businesses, as the need to keep up with the regulatory and technical complexity of financial planning increases,” she says.

“We are also seeing offshoots of specialisations in areas such as cashflow planning, complex pension reviews and intergenerational wealth expertise.”

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