Regulation

The survival of commission and lax regulation are fuelling a "significant shift" to non-advice in the mass market for annuities, at the expense of professional advice, transparency and healthy consumer outcomes, according to the Financial Services Consumer...

Axa Wealth's multi-manager arm Architas has appointed former UBS GAM sales director James Bampton as head of intermediary sales.

MPs have refused to grant the regulator the power to ban individuals before its investigations into them are completed, due in part to the "serious harm" it could cause small firms.

Almost half of financial advisers have turned away clients this year because they felt their services were too expensive for them, according to research commissioned by the Association of Professional Financial Advisers (APFA).

SCOTLAND

The financial services industry needs a simplified regime within which it can "talk the consumer language", in order to attract people shut out by the retreat of bank advice, BlackRock has suggested.

The Bank of England has maintained interest rates at 0.5% and the size of the asset purchase programme at £375bn.

The Money Advice Service (MAS) has started to develop "more targeted advice provision" and will soon be providing value for money, the National Audit Office (NAO) has said in a report, out today.

The European Commission has collectively fined 6 international financial institutions €1.7bn (£1.4bn) for their involvement in the manipulation of benchmark rates.

Confidence in UK financial services is at a 17 year high, with firms anticipating a greater recovery in volumes, profitability and employment in the fourth quarter.