Price: only important in the absence of clear value
Last week the lang cat launched PLATFORM PRICING PROPHECIES: PAST PRESENT AND PHUTURE. If you haven’t downloaded it yet, consider yourself on the naughty step? but don’t worry? you still can and all will be forgiven. Calling it as we see it is kind of our thing and the paper has elicited (ooh fancy) a […]
Better communications: Only smarties have the answer
I was interested to read the FCA’s discussion paper around smarter consumer communications, published yesterday here. The Regulator has recognised the fact that the way the financial services industry communicates with its customers often leaves a lot to be desired. Christopher Woolard, director of strategy and competition, said: “information itself does not necessarily empower the […]
Indebted to technology
One of the housekeeping points I chatted through recently with @theactualpolson was the matter of company expenses. As much as I left my old job on good terms I had to relinquish my beloved old company credit card, so I needed to apply for a new one to cater for the massive Lang Cat expense […]
Elven safety at #langcatlive
So we’ve had Mr Polson’s version of the #langcatlive experience. A perspective largely from behind a camera which, after a little cross-London sprint and some highly educational narrative, was happily attached to a tripod. (There’s a lesson in there: checklists are great as long as you remember to put stuff on them.) We’ve also had […]
Why? An inaugural blog from Mike Barrett
Sorry if I’ve mislead you with the blog title, but this blog is about me and nothing to do with Annie Lennox’s 1992 smash (no. 5) hit. Everyone knows you should never start a presentation with an apology, although curiously some of the best presenters I’ve seen do. On that basis it must be even […]
Sparryheid and the Internet of Things
It’s summer 2010. The first investment platforms have just turned 10 years old. The digital revolution is in full swing. There is no One Direction. In a (sort of) alternate reality called THE PLATFORM WORLD a keen young development analyst (we will call her Janice) has, whilst on annual leave in that free thinking state […]
A dam fine retirement guide
Having spent the last couple of months SWIMMING in the pool of change that is the UK at retirement market – not just DIPPING A TOE, you understand but DIVING right on in there – a couple of things struck me. First, that freedom can be a pyrrhic victory. Old King Pyrrus of Epirus might […]
Launch a secondary annuity market and then you can go out to play
For anyone even skimming HM Treasury’s consultation paper on the launch of a secondary annuity market, the lack of enthusiasm in its presentation was palpable. The press release and subsequent paper is permeated with the belief that for most people, sticking with an annuity is the right thing to do. It feels very much like […]
Under penalty of death
(Mark writes: this is Terry’s very first blog as a feline at the lang cat – we’re chuffed to have him here. You can email him at terry@langcatfinancial.com) After last week, we’ve now had two budgets in a row, and a not really in autumn statement in between, that have changed the savings landscape forever. […]
Life is harder now (in investment outsourcing, anyway)
Earlier this week the lang cat and CWC Research launched Never Mind the Quality, Feel the Width, a new, in-depth study of the outsourced centralised investment proposition (CIP) marketplace. The report is made up of qualitative adviser and industry interviews by CWC Research, alongside quantitative analysis by the lang cat of a range of discretionary […]
