FCA

Warren Buffett and FCA Review of RDR & FAMR

There was an interesting article on the career of Warren Buffett in the last FT Weekend magazine. It was a wide-ranging interview with the renowned investor who became one of the richest persons in the world by making investments which consistently outperformed the markets over the last 50 years. At age 88 he still claims to be having fun by working at investment. But in the last ten years he has fallen behind the S&P index. The reason is primarily because he ...

ShareSoc and UKSA make joint response to FCA/FRC Consultation on Effective Stewardship

In January 2019, the FCA and FRC  issued a joint discussion  paper DP19/1 Building a regulatory framework for effective stewardship. On 15 April 2019, we made a joint response from UKSA and ShareSoc on behalf of individual investors. In our response we make the following key points: Investor stewardship must not let boards off the hook for their own stewardship. The Stewardship Code should be renamed the Investor Stewardship Code to better reflect what investors do and to better acknowledge the role of ...

FCA Consultation on proposals to improve shareholder engagement

In January the FCA issued a consultation paper CP19/7 Financial Conduct Authority Consultation on proposals to improve shareholder engagement. This was a technical consultation on how to implement the EU Shareholder Rights Directive II in relation to its Stewardship aspects. Today 27 March UKSA and ShareSoc made a joint response, on behalf of individual investors. We made a number of points, see below, with further background in an Appendix. We think this is important context to our response to the FCA consultation as ...

FCA Makes Platform Switching Easier

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) have today announced some measures to improve competition in the platforms market. Experienced investors who use electronic trading platforms will be well aware of the problems of switching to another provider if they are dissatisfied with the service, wish to move to a cheaper provider or for other reasons such as consolidating on one provider or spreading their risk over several. It simply takes too long to move “in-specie” holdings from one platform to another  ̶  ...

The Unstoppable Glacier of Government’s Concerted Actions?

By Cliff Weight, Director, ShareSoc We sometimes see things changing at a glacier-like pace. But once a glacier starts moving it has huge momentum and is unstoppable. My question is: is this metaphor applicable to the way Government is behaving with regard to business? The civil servants who drive Government policy transcend the short lives of Parliament. Taking this perspective what do we see? My take on this is as follows. The Financial Crisis terrified nearly everyone. We stared into the abyss. We were ...

FCA Sector Views- ShareSoc+UKSA response

The Financial Conduct Authority’s Sector Views publication provides its annual analysis of the changing financial landscape, the resulting impacts on consumers and market effectiveness. This analysis will feed into the FCA Business Plan 2019/20. Although the Sector Views are not a consultation, the FCA are interested in the views of stakeholders on its findings. ShareSoc & UKSA made a joint submission. The main points we made were: We are appalled that Sector Views fails to give sufficient weight to the damning criticisms of ...

FCA Views of the Financial Landscape

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) have published a document entitled “Sector Views” giving their annual analysis of the UK financial landscape and how the financial system is working – see https://tinyurl.com/yc492lkt. For retail investors there is a chapter on “Retail Investments” which is particularly worth reading. But we also learn that the “FCA continues to plan for a range of scenarios regarding Brexit” which is good to hear. I somehow doubt it will be settled tomorrow (15th January) in Parliament – I ...

Response to Illiquid Assets Consultation cp18-27

Today, 17 December 2018, ShareSoc and  the UK Shareholders Association  submitted to the FCA a joint response on behalf of individual investors to this consultation. The key points we made were: UKSA and ShareSoc represent the 5 million people who own shares and have investment accounts with platforms in the UK. We represent the individual investors who own 12% of the UK stock market: they own 30%, if you include their investments via funds, pensions, etc. Our view is that better labelling of these ...

Blancco AGM and Regulatory Landscape

Today I attended the Annual General Meeting of Blancco Technology Group (BLTG). This technology company is now focused on the data erasure market which is surely a growing one. I have commented on this company before (see links below), particularly as the company, and its shareholders, seemed to be a victim of false accounting – an issue that is way too prevalent of late. The legal framework under which companies, their directors and the regulatory bodies operate just seems to be too ...

New FCA consultation on CFDs – Request for help

by Cliff Weight, Director, ShareSoc The FCA have launched a new consultation on CFDs and “retail derivatives”: https://www.fca.org.uk/publications/consultation-papers/cp18-38-restricting-contract-difference-products-sold-retail-clients-and-discussion-other-retail  We are circulating this to members to see if anyone has specific experience and competence to be able to respond – and is willing to help. The FCA have asked 17 specific questions. Our approach to consultations is to only answer those questions where we have particular knowledge.  We usually write a covering letter highlighting our views about the key issues and then give the answers ...