It’s a scientific fact that January is the longest month of the year, containing as it does 287 days, most of which are Not Good. Speaking of which, you owed His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs some money yesterday, and I bet at least some of you, despite 286 days of January to get sorted for it, forgot. Still, and echoing last week’s Update, as long as it was just careless you’ll probably be fine, and remember it’s all the media’s fault.
After banging on about Consumer Duty and regulatory stuff I was looking for more fun topics this week; I’m a bit fed up with the relentless torrent of bad news. So I had a trawl around to see what good news I could find (if you ever wonder “what does Mark get up to on Tuesday nights?” then it’s this) and here’s what I found:
- Er…
- Still looking…
- Insomnium are releasing a new record in March
- That’s it.
In times like this one must reach for nice things that are happening, and so I’m going to ignore Consumer Duty, the letter from the FCA out yesterday and all the rest of it, and concentrate on our Home Truths event, next Thursday, details here.
It’s nice that we’ve got a full house (you can stream Home Truths for free but you have to register via that link first) and it’s nice that so many folk have said that they’re looking forward to it.
But the main nice thing is that in setting up Home Truths we asked a bunch of planners (and advisers; that distinction will be important on the day) to set themselves up for potential brickbats and criticism, in the interests of trying to a) entertain you lot and b) make people think about whether the accepted or conventional wisdom is right. I’m an HL Mencken fan and I like his quote: “For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.”
We’ve asked many of our speakers to take the unpopular and probably more complex side of a load of different hot-button issues, not just out of badness (though that’s fun too) but because everything’s so full on all the time we rarely stop and take the time to use points of departure or difference to help us understand our own thinking and maybe even to critique ourselves. That’s in part because the consequences can be profound – as we’ll hear from some of our speakers, it sets you out on a quite different path.
The day will go wherever it goes – you’re never totally in control of these things and that’s the glory of them – but one of the things I’ll take from it is how up for it everyone is. This is a day when we want to pull at all the difficult stuff which is inconvenient and which would cause most businesses serious hassle to change, and everyone is sticking up their hands to say yes please, we’ll have a bit of that. That’s awesome, and one in the eye for those whose received wisdom is that advisers are all in it for themselves and an easy life. In a week where bad apples are in the news again, this is exactly the antidote.
Turns out some of this might be a Consumer Dutery kind of thing after all.
Anyway, I’ll be deep in event mode next week and so one of the other cats will Update you. Look forward to seeing those of you who are coming along, and lots more of you online (do register and drop in). And thanks for letting me bimble on about something abstract, if only to cheer myself up.
#LANGCATLINKS
- OK, you do have to read SOMETHING about Consumer Duty. Maybe two things.
- We want your attendance at the Rock for Ukraine gig on 23rd February and your money to help people who really need it, and if we can only have one of those we’ll have your money thanks. Please support if you can. And come along. There will be a mosh pit, maybe.
- Retirement income review? Tom’s got a podcat for that.
- Quite a lot of movement in the D2C market at the moment – II launching a new very low cost pricing tier and M&G Wealth making the most of its Moneyfarm investment.
- And your music choice this week is in memory of Tom Verlaine, without whom an awful lot of stuff people like wouldn’t exist. Here’s Television with Foxhole live at the BBC. Glorious stuff. RIP Tom.
Till next time
Mark
