Product providers selling out of intermediary firms

While the UK financial services industry awaits the impact of depolarisation, Australia, which underwent the process in the early 1990s, is already providing some pointers to the future. The Australian financial services market depolarised naturally between 1992 and 1995, with large insurance firms and banks buying up intermediary firms. It is a process which is now being reversed by the institutions themselves. For example, Perpetual in Australia held a 51% stake in the Investor Security Group. Last week, this stake was sold back to the intermediary. The Commonwealth Bank of Austral...