Apples and oranges
Last week I wrote nice things about Fidelity and their transparent disclosure of fund manager rebates. This week I find myself back wrestling opacity again, and it reminds me how difficult it is to perform meaningful comparisons between old and new world. To many people outside the platformerati (you’re welcome) with highly-evolved scepticism, platforms are […]
High Fidelity
Well, this is a turn-up for the books. Fidelity FundsNetwork (the SPECTRE of fund supermarkets to Skandia’s SMERSH) has announced that it’s going to start publishing the rebates it receives from fund managers. Money Marketing has the skinny here. A couple of things jump to mind: Well done. Yes, Fiddy would have had to do […]
FSA Says We’re Rubber, You’re Glue, It Bounces Off Us And Sticks To You
Now that was a paper and a half. PS11/9 will, I think, in time be seen as a watermark in terms of what FSA have to say about those who try to screw with them. In fact, if you enter a secret code when you download the paper, there’s an extra page at the back […]
The irresistible decline of provider extranets?
Just a short post, inspired by a piece I saw recently from a platform user. His thing was that other than trading, he used very little of the reporting or client management functionality that his chosen platform bundled in (he happened to use CoFunds but it could’ve been anyone). Instead of relying on the platform […]
That, Mr Anderson, is the sound of inevitability
Agent Smith’s words to Neo might have a special resonance to public sector workers this week as they stand bravely, Canute-style in the face of pensions reform. The argument is too much, too soon, and we’ve already moved to a sustainable basis. But the truth is that the public don’t want their servants to have […]
He Who Must Not Be Named (For Copyright Reasons) & The Curse Of The IMA Sectors
As the sprawling and increasingly desperate Franchise That Would Not Die limps towards its close, I find myself pondering the power of naming. As any fule or fan of the spotty wizard kno, naming something gives you power over it, or calls it into being. This is roughly the same post-structuralist Weltanschauung that led Ferdinand […]
Where next for platform inflows?
One of the luxuries of being independent is that you can take your time to think about the stories of the day before posting. So it’s in that spirit that I’ve been chewing over the new inflow figures from the always insightful Platforum and their thoughts on why growth is flatlining (that isn’t to say […]
What can you get for £225m?
So Citywire report today that between them AXA, Standard Life and Old Mutual (the parent of Skandia) have spent £225m injecting capital into loss-making platforms. Standard lead the pack with a £116m injection to cover a £130m loss (2007-2009), AXA chipped in £47m or so to cover losses in 08/09 and Old Mutual ponied up […]
Blah blah rebates blah blah
Oh for the love of the big man, people, you were meant to have got this all fixed by now. But returning after a stint looking after the lang kitten, I find that we are still ripping ourselves apart on the issue of how we charge customers less for stuff. I’m in favour of preserving […]
Humanity 2.0
Forgive the ramblings of an extremely tired but proud dad. This clearly has nothing to do with platforms or pensions, but I frankly see no point in having your own website if you can’t do stuff like this on it. Anyway, April 17, 2011 at 0716 saw the birth of Angus Matthew Polson, the lang […]
