Passive funds and ‘Do no harm’ are not synonymous October 26, 2021 | City Talk Some very black-and-white and reductive opinions about the prudence of active management have been making the rounds in the investment world of late. For example, in Defined Contribution Plans: Challenges and Opportunities for Plan Sponsors, from the CFA Institute Research Foundation, Jeffery Bailey, CFA, and Kurt Winkelmann state that an investment committee’s first responsibility is to “do [...]
Fintech PensionBee revenue jumps following listing October 21, 2021 Fintech PensionBee has reported year on year revenue growth of 110 per cent. Its revenue hit £8.9m over the nine months to September 2021, compared to £4.2bn in September 2020, it revealed in results for the nine months to September 30. The company hit 602k registered customers in the third quarter of the year. Adjusted [...]
AJ Bell customer numbers leap as Covid measures ease October 21, 2021 Investment platform AJ Bell’s customer numbers swelled 30 per cent in its previous financial year. Results for the year ended September 30 showed total customer numbers increased to 382,754. In the final quarter of the financial year, net new platform customers increased 16 per cent and platform net inflows increased by 78 per cent, compared [...]
The future of work in a post-Covid investment industry October 19, 2021 | City Talk Disruptions resulting from Covid-19 have forced businesses to adapt and create new models of work. Although some industries may return to something resembling their pre-pandemic operating model, the investment industry has already crossed a threshold. That is the view of Kunal Kapoor, CFA, who participated in a webinar entitled ‘The War for Talent and the [...]
Skills in the City: financial services sector looks to the future October 18, 2021 | City Talk To what extent should organisations that compete fiercely to attract new recruits (and for business overall) be collaborating when it comes to enhancing their workforces’ skillsets? It’s tricky to imagine many of the Square Mile’s biggest names freely sharing their training programmes outside their own four walls. ‘Sure, we’ll just send you what we do [...]
UK investors play it safe, while Chinese take risks and Indians are all over crypto October 14, 2021 Affluent to ultra-high-net worth investors in the UK are the most conservative in terms of investment risk among international peers, according to new research, shared exclusively with City A.M. today. More than half of wealthy UK-based investors rated themselves as conservative in terms of their approach to risk, with 20 per cent describing themselves as [...]
Salary slaves: 2021’s best and worst paid industries and the UK’s fastest-growing sectors October 14, 2021 Earlier this week, City A.M. revealed private equity firms are prepared to pay junior staff with less than two years experience an average salary of more than £152,000, a jump of 52 per cent compared to two years ago. For those with two to four years of experience, an salary of around £181,000 has become [...]
The whisky-maker putting the ‘fun’ in Non-Fungible October 13, 2021 Glenfiddich is putting the “fun” into non-fungible, with NFTs you can drink. The pioneering single malt whisky brand is partnering with BlockBar, a new platform for buying, collecting and trading non-fungible tokens (NFTs) related to luxury wines and spirits. The service will launch next week, with the sale of limited edition Glenfiddich NFTs: fifteen unique [...]
Lockdown savings drained as Brits worry about price rises October 13, 2021 Three quarters of UK adults are worried about rising living costs with the sandwich generation of 45-64-year-olds the most anxious. Some 35 per cent feel more anxious about the future compared with before the pandemic, rising to 42 per cent among people aged 45-54. The data comes from Aviva, who said one in five people [...]
Perpetual debt is already here October 12, 2021 | City Talk “Be still indebted to somebody or other, that there may be somebody always to pray for you, [. . .] fearing, if fortune should deal crossly with you, that it might be his chance to come short of being paid by you.” François Rabelais, Gargantua and Pantagruel, Book III Pundits worldwide are debating what to do with [...]