the lang cat gets published
Forgive the self-puffery, but a bit of a landmark moment for the lang cat. My first feature not as part of the corporate machine was carried in the fine publication we know as Pensions Management in their December issue. It’s a longer version of this post – what’s the right price for a platform? You […]
Merry Christmas from the lang cat
Well, that’s pretty much it as far as work goes for 2010. It’s been a huge year for pensions and platforms. As more comes our way in 2011 I guess my wish for next year is that we find a way to get more people as motivated to sort out their financial lives as they […]
Why platforms are so complicated
If you listen very closely you can hear the faint gnashing of teeth in various large office buildings round the country. It’s said sometimes that providers are now run by accountants, not actuaries. But actuaries, like certain water-borne infections, are hard to kill and they’re hard wired into the DNA of these large companies. Why […]
Everyone’s a publisher now
Recently I’ve been reading and working on some client-facing materials (on and offline) for a couple of companies, big and small. Here’s a little cri de coeur from me. Think of it as a little set of guidelines if writing and publishing copy isn’t your stock-in-trade. If you’re going to publish content, behave like a […]
setting the foxes to watch the henhouse
Sorry about the title of this post. Sometimes a piece jumps up that just fits into a cliche so neatly you can’t resist it, and this is one of those. Citywire reports that the UK Platform Group (broadly speaking the fund supermarkets) are putting together a proposal for a unified standard of disclosure for the […]
You sort it out. You. Sort it. Out.
Just a quick post on one of the things from CP10/29 that hasn’t picked up so much coverage in amongst all the hoohah on rebates, admin payments and so on. Later on in the CP, our narrator says “We are proposing new rules to ensure that investors who access authorised funds through intermediate unitholders receive […]
all your rebate are belong to us pt.2
In my previous post (all your rebate are belong to us) I set out 3 wishes for the FSA platform paper we now know as CP10/29. The nice thing about the lang cat not being a vested interest is that I was able to take a bit of time to reflect before weighing in. Having […]
small things to make your life better #2
So it’s a dreich Monday morning here in Edinburgh, but our spirits are kept high by an historic rugby win at the weekend. That’ll be twice Scotland have beaten South Africa in 41 years then. Anyway, in honour of that and of the upcoming 6 Nations, here’s a clip that never ever fails to have […]
Sorry, Macquarie
Macquarie’s decision this week to close its UK platform could hardly have been timed better, or worse. Previously serene platform hacks were sent into a gibbering caffeine-fuelled overdrive as they tried to cover CP10/29 and this big news from the Australian giant at the same time. The lang cat is under no such pressure, so […]
All your rebate are belong to us (3 wishes for the FSA platform paper)
This post was originally going to be a wishlist for the FSA’s platforms paper, expected later this week. But in the last 48 hours a couple of interesting things about rebates and margins have popped up that bear a wee bit of investigating. First up, a rumour hit Citywire that FSA will ban rebates being […]
