Opinion

Well it seems that Alternatively Secured Pensions (ASP) are beginning to surface again, as the industry continues to struggle with unclear legislation and conflicting opinions.

In the recent past, the to-ing and fro-ing in the pensions world has given us lots of opportunities to talk about offshore.

Is it just me or is it finally the case that analysts and other industry observers are finally beginning to get their heads around the concept of persistency and its interfering little brother, churn? I see it as a rather straightforward issue.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing. Just think about the better decisions we could all make if we knew exactly how things would turn out in the end - decisions on careers, houses, fashion styles!

Mortgage Trading Exchange's decision to open its electronic trading standards to allow them to integrate with other platforms shouldn't really come as a surprise.

When you look at the UK equity market, it is quite apparent that the systematic institutional selling of equities is continuing at a pace.

The Financial Ombudsman Service caused a lot of anger among IFAonline readers last week with a double whammy in its monthly newsletter, attacking so-called ‘dramatic' claims and saying a small firms division is unnecessary.

With the battle of the new and established lenders well under way, can any particular lender achieve high profit margins, fantastic service and market leading rates, all at the same time? Or is this a dream, an impossible reality?

In my blog last month I tried to brew up a storm with my suggestion that neither the public nor the regulator understood the difference between independent financial advice and independent financial sales.

It's just not what I wanted to see after a busy day at the office. Just got home - traffic was shocking with the onslaught of Scotch mist (torrential rain) - attended to one or two ‘must do's' before sitting down to a relatively healthy, cooked-from-scratch...