News & Insights

The start of a new decade, and with it the beginning of a new era for Britain and its citizens in the form of Brexit, represents the perfect time to review your wealth management plans. From taking a look at the suitability of your asset allocation and your pension savings to reviewing your tax and estate planning, now is an especially pertinent time to develop a clear path into the future.

While Brexit is not quite a done deal yet, there is at least some clarity and although Boris Johnson might have been unable to get Brexit ‘done' immediately, one thing is pretty clear: as of 31 January, the UK really will begin the process of leaving the EU.

The minutes have been published for October's Financial Conduct Authority board meeting* in which the organisation discussed, among other regulatory matters, pension losses and the kinds of situations that might arise in the event of a future economic instability.

Increasing numbers of investors are motivated to put their money into ethically and ecologically minded investments. This is undoubtedly an admirable aim, however, investors who fail to take adequate international financial advice risk becoming vulnerable to scammers looking to prey on their good intentions.

This fact has recently been underlined with the conviction and sentencing of five men for their operation of a multi-million pound fraudulent eco-investment scheme; a scheme which has been described by HM Revenue & Customs as one of the largest of its kind to be carried out in the UK.

This time we look at what the central bank of France's latest predictions may signal for the country's economy and President Macron's reactions to the latest pension protests.

Banque de France has predicted slower than expected growth of the French economy over the next 12 months as the second largest economy in the eurozone negotiates twin obstacles in the form of global uncertainty and simmering trade wars. It also comes on the back of a 5 December nationwide strike and controversy over President Emmanuel Macron's proposed pension reforms.

If you are worried about the Lifetime Allowance (LTA), we understand. LTA is a limit on the amount of pension benefit that can be drawn from pensions schemes without an extra charge being triggered.

Not only can the LTA seem complicated, it can also come across as an instrument that does little more than unfairly punish the most prudent and hardworking of retirement savers, particularly those who have taken advantage of what Albert Einstein once dubbed the "eighth wonder of the world": compound interest.

For all but the highest net worth individuals, a pension pot will be the most valuable retirement asset in the long-term financial plan. Despite this, many retirement savers take a passive approach to pension planning and ultimately fail to realise the benefits of considering all the options and opportunities available to them.

One such opportunity is to transfer pension savings into a Self Invested Personal Pension (SIPP) and then drawdown to access your money.

But what exactly is a drawdown pension, and what should you be mindful of when considering pension drawdown options?

Are we on the cusp of a brave new world of robo-advisers in the financial advice industry?

If the latest poll from artificial intelligence (AI) innovator Rainbird is anything to go by*, the answer is "yes", with the company predicting the emergence of "meaningful" AI platforms, which, it says, will become integral to the financial advice market over the coming years.

There is a lot I have learned over more than three decades in the financial services industry and while this period of managing client investments was made possible by my education and enthusiasm, the years have taught me that there is no substitute for experience. There is a big difference between knowing something theoretically and having first-hand, practical experience of it.

However, another side of my experience has been as a financial planning "firefighter"; learning, after the event, from the experiences of others, typically those clients who come to me a little crestfallen or embarrassed as a result of losses or stagnation caused by regrettable investment decisions.