Libyan Stamps

Business analyst Business insurance Profesional Service Project Management Sales Management Strategy Management

PFS backs Financial Vulnerability Taskforce

The Personal Finance Society has been a key mover behind the launch of an independent Financial Vulnerability Taskforce aimed at supporting planners and advisers to spot and tackle consumer vulnerability.

The professional body, which awards the Chartered Financial Planner designation and has 40,000 members, says it wants to improve client outcomes and increase access to financial advice.

Advisers will be encouraged to support the taskforce campaign and sign up for a new Financial Vulnerabilty Charter.

The taskforce will promote wider understanding of clients in vulnerable circumstances and encourage good practice as well as addressing the expectations of regulatory standards and public expectations.

{loadposition hidden2}

To adopt the Financial Vulnerability Charter financial advisers need to commit to the nine core consumer guide pledges.

These:

Acknowledge their services involve the application of specialist and technical financial knowledge which places many clients in a position of dependency.
Ensure clients’ interests are placed above

… Read the rest

Business Business analyst Business insurance International Business News Small Business Strategy Management

No direct link between the COVID vaccine and a recent string of deaths in the elderly, Norway finds

Health authorities in Norway say there’s no evidence of a direct link between the recent string of deaths among elderly people inoculated against COVID-19, and the vaccine they received.

The Norwegian Medicines Agency is seeking to address fears that taking the vaccine might be too risky, after 33 people in the country aged 75 and over died following immunization, according to the agency’s latest figures. All were already seriously ill, it said.

“Clearly, Covid-19 is far more dangerous to most patients than vaccination,” Steinar Madsen, medical director at the Norwegian Medicines Agency, said by phone on Monday. “We are not alarmed.”

The initial reports from Norway made international headlines as the world looks for early signs of potential side effects from the vaccines. Until Friday, Norway had only used the vaccine provided by Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE, and the companies are now working with the Nordic country to look into the … Read the rest

Business analyst Business insurance Profesional Service Project Management Sales Management Strategy Management

7IM latest platform to axe VAT from MPS

7IM has become the latest platform to announce the removal of VAT charges from its Managed Portfolio Service (MPS).

The price changes will come into effect as of 1 February 2021 and apply to the model portfolios available to Financial Planners through the 7IM platform as well as third party platforms.

7IM follows a growing number of providers removing VAT from their Managed Portfolio Services, recently including Brooks Macdonald and AJ Bell.

{loadposition hidden2}

The decision to remove VAT follows industry discussions with HMRC about the requirement to add VAT to MPS products with HMRC indicating it is not required. Other firms which have now removed VAT from MPS investment products include Brewin Dolphin, Tilney Smith & Williamson and Investec.

The changes mean the 7IM Active and Passive model portfolios will have an all-in cost of 0.25% going forward, while the Bespoke model portfolios range between 0.25%-0.30%.

The 7IM Pathway

… Read the rest

Business Business analyst Business insurance International Business News Small Business Strategy Management

Business could be on the precipice of an automation explosion

Automation is hardly a new threat to workers. Long before the arrival of COVID-19 disrupted businesses, many manufacturing executives were already changing how their companies assembled products, and other industries were considering following suit.

But as the global crisis has dragged on, the pandemic could be accelerating that shift.

“Every time there’s a disruption it forces people to make decisions,” says Tom Smith, an associate professor of finance at Emory University’s Goizueta Business School. “I would put money on the fact that this has sped up at least the decision-making process. When, all of a sudden, you’re in a crisis, smart and creative people find solutions. Creative people don’t let the crisis take everything down if they can help it.”

Just under 40% of U.S. jobs are at significant risk of being automated, according to the World Economic Forum (WEF). More than 10% of the country’s jobs are at high … Read the rest

Business analyst Business insurance Profesional Service Project Management Sales Management Strategy Management

Supreme Court backs Covid-19 insurance payouts

The Supreme Court has mostly accepted an FCA appeal which opens the door to Covid-19 business interruption (BI) insurance payouts.

An estimated 370,000 SME policyholders could be helped by the judgment.

Last year the FCA launched a business interruption insurance test case to seek a judicial judgment on whether insurers should pay out after many argued Covid-19 interruption was not covered by policies.

The Supreme Court today delivered its judgment on the test case and substantially allowed the FCA’s appeal on behalf of policyholders.

The FCA says this should complete the legal process for impacted policies and means that many thousands of policyholders will now have their claims for coronavirus-related business interruption losses paid. Payouts could total millions of pounds and help thousands of small firms as well as preserving jobs.

{loadposition hidden2}

Sheldon Mills, executive director, consumers and competition at the FCA, said: “Coronavirus is causing substantial loss and

… Read the rest

Business Business analyst Business insurance International Business News Small Business Strategy Management

Look out L.A. and New York: the migration wave lead by Gen Z and city dwellers is real

Across the nation major central business districts in cities like Los Angeles, Chicago, and Seattle remain eerily empty as employers continue to keep staff working remotely. Heading into the holidays, only 1 in 10 office workers had made their way back into Manhattan.

But is the disruption caused by the pandemic—and the work from home boom—actually convincing Americans to pack their bags and move?

To find out, Fortune and SurveyMonkey polled 2,098 U.S. adults in November.* This poll, which has a modeled error estimate of +/-3%, is an even deeper study than our August look at migration.

The finding? Millions of Americans moved as a result of the pandemic—and millions more plan to do so. Among U.S. adults, 16% say they have either moved out of their city/county during the pandemic (6%) or plan to move in the next 12 months (12%). Around 2% of Americans who moved … Read the rest

Business analyst Business insurance Profesional Service Project Management Sales Management Strategy Management

Editor’s Column: Why putting cash before clients is a mistake

I was mightily impressed this week by the words from the expanding senior team at Glasgow-based holistic Financial Planning firm Murphy Wealth.

Their words reminded me once again that while there are many ways to run a Financial Planning business, focusing entirely on acquiring funds under management – with little regard to client happiness and wellbeing – is not one of them.

Their firm, a lifestyle planning firm and therefore on the ‘holistic’ wing of the Financial Planning profession, announced a couple of senior appointments this week as it plans to expand this particular approach.

{loadposition hidden2}

It promoted John Moran to be its new executive chair and Neil Bage to the new role of chief behavioural officer. I do not know many Financial Planning firms with CBOs yet but it could well be the coming trend. It’s perhaps best seen as an extended COO with some behavioural science included.

… Read the rest

Business Business analyst Business insurance International Business News Small Business Strategy Management

What job security? Americans are feeling worn down and fearful of layoffs

The vaccine rollout and incoming Democratic administration has Wall Street feeling pretty darn optimistic: Goldman Sachs is even going as far to project 2021 GDP growth of over 6%—which, if it occurred, would be the highest growth rate since 1984.

But don’t pencil it in just yet. Look no further than the jobs report on Friday, which found that the nation lost 140,000 jobs in December—our first net job loss since April.

To sustain an economic recovery, it requires more than just a confident Wall Street. Main Street, or American consumers who make up two-thirds of GDP, would also need to feel confident enough to spend on big-ticket items and take risks. To get a pulse on how Americans are feeling, Fortune analyzed data from more 30 surveys conducted since the onset of the crisis by Civis Analytics.

We found that Americans are slightly more optimistic now … Read the rest

Business analyst Business insurance Profesional Service Project Management Sales Management Strategy Management

Quilter launches scam reporting tool

Wealth management and Financial Planning giant Quilter has launched a new online tool for reporting suspected impersonation scams.

Anyone who believes they have been exposed to, or have fallen victim to, an impersonation scam that features a clone of Quilter’s branding or marketing materials, can use the tool to report their concerns directly to the firm.

The online tool will report suspected scams directly to Quilter’s financial crime team, who will assess the legitimacy of the investment proposition in each individual case and provide a response directly to the consumer the next working day offering support and guidance on next steps.

Investment scams that impersonate a regulated financial services firm have surged in recent years, increasing by 634% since 2010. Impersonation scams accounted for 37% of all FCA warnings issued between 2010 and December 2020.

{loadposition hidden2}

Quilter’s brand has been used by scammers in the past in an attempt

… Read the rest

Business Business analyst Business insurance International Business News Small Business Strategy Management

Sequoia’s Doug Leone turns on Trump

Doug Leone, a venture capitalist at Sequoia Capital, was among the few prominent supporters of President Donald Trump in the tech community.

While quiet to the media in his support, the investor has donated hundreds of thousands to Trump-related re-election campaigns and reportedly sought to use his ties in a bid to help keep a Sequoia portfolio company, Chinese-backed social media company ByteDance, from being banned in the U.S.

On Wednesday, the investor at the influential venture capital firm came out to publicly denounced Trump’s actions following the storming of Capitol Hill last week.

“I strongly condemn the attack on the US Capitol and all acts of violence,” Leone wrote in a statement as first reported by Recode. “After last week’s horrific events, President Trump lost many of his supporters, including me. The actions of the President and other rally speakers were responsible for inciting the rioters.”… Read the rest