So here it is, siblings, the very last Update of 2023. You’ll be pleased to know it’s a short one. We did think about creating a showreel of all our Stuff from 2023 and then dropping it on LinkedIn along with a message about being #blessed and a piece about 5am sun salutations, but then we realised that we’d really literally rather do anything else and that includes tidying up the next door office after the start of the Christmas night out last Thursday. Or it had better include it; that carpet was crunchier than I recall when I went in there yesterday. 

No big recap of the year, then – you can get that from folk willing to put far more work into this sort of thing than I am – but I will just mention that this funny little shop called the lang cat delivered 2 big events, 26 podcats (the most recent of which on the advice/guidance boundary review is here), over a dozen industry papers and publications, a new website, a new regulatory tracker service, dozens of webinars and a wheen of client work you’d never know was us, helped hundreds of firms with platform and MPS due diligence and spaffed something like 51 Updates out into the bargain. And we did all that with 27 folk, which discounting me – something you should always do – is 26 folk, and that ain’t nothing. Boast over. 

So. Instead of more looking back, let’s look forward. Here are three themes I think we’ll be talking about for most of next year. Ready?  

1. REFRAGMENTATION – is a good word what I just made up. The consolidation market has had it its own way for a long time now, and while we’ll see plenty of dealmaking still, it’s noticeable in the FCA stats that the total supply of firms isn’t going down much. Watch as consolidators – already facing major headwinds from regulation that’s poking VI with a stick and a steeply rising cost of servicing debt feel the tide turn, and watch as advisers head back out the door to start again. Restrictive covenants only work so well and for so long; clients can do what they want and so they will in the fullness of time.  
2. INCOME – of the GYMBOA (Getting Your Money Back Out Again) variety, not the share classes. The sector is nowhere close to getting complex income provision at scale right, but there are green shoots and I think we’ll see some fun stuff coming to market next year. We have a few short years left before hundreds of thousands of clients turn up without the security of a DB scheme behind them, and they’ll need their drawdown and their ISA and their GIA and their bonds and their cash to all work together a damn sight better than it does now. We’ve had it easy till now, but that won’t last. 2024 is when it starts to come together. 
3. CONSUMER DUTY – I know what you’re thinking, slow down Einstein, this is a bit much with the devastating insight. But holy MOLY things feel different on the 20th of December 2023 than they did a year before. The cash letter, the vulnerability stuff with wealth managers, the retirement outcomes review, the data requests…we’re not in Kansas any more. Actually I’ve never been in Kansas, don’t fancy it much, would prefer a remote cabin in a forest in Finland, as long as you can dodge the black metal bands doing photoshoots. Sorry. The point is – it’s not just talking about it any more, there are proper things to work on, things to change, attitudes to shift and complacency to puncture. 2024 is when we start to see actual impacts from the Duty. It’ll start with cash rates, but it certainly won’t end there. 

There are more, but you’ve got fortified wine to buy and it’s late on Tuesday night and I won’t feel ready to crack on with Christmas until I’ve cleared what Julian Cope called the ‘psychic custard’ by getting this Update finished. 

I will just say that from where I sit the clear difficulties out there in the real world and the headwinds we all face don’t look like enough to stop 2024 being a properly exciting year. To us it’ll be a year of regeneration – which handily is the theme of our February event in London – and that’s an exciting thing to be part of. 

So thank you to all who’ve helped us this year; the hundreds of firms who’ve done research interviews and filled out surveys, the clients who pay for things so we can keep this intense level of mucking around going, and all of you who read our stuff. And a huge thanks from me to my ridiculously talented team, who have earned a borderline tolerable if not actually decent break over the festivities. As have you.  

ONE MORE SONG 

As you may know, the Update operates a strict no repeats policy on the music front, so no matter how often DJ Mikey B bleats about “can I get a rewind” the answer is always, firmly, no. But I make one exception a year, and it’s for the best Christmas ballad you’ve never heard and one which can proudly take its place next to Shane and Kirsty. Grab someone you love, or just someone off the street if none are available, pour them another, talk of good times and of loves left behind and drink this night younger with Merry Christmas My Darling (Drink Up) by Lowri Evans and Tom McRae.  

See you next year and have a braw Christmas and Hogmanay. Peace.