FW: Not anonymous

-----Original Message-----
From: Evan
Sent: 25 October 2008 12:29
To: 'bankingcrisisparliament.uk'
Subject: Not anonymous

I wish to submit the following questions:

Do you now agree with an overwhelming majority of people in the financial
services industry that the "tripartite agreement" is fundamentally flawed
due to conflicts of interest?

Do you now agree that banking supervision is something one state body should
have full responsibility for and that it should be the role of the Bank of
England and its former staff who are now at the FSA?

Given the risks that banks pose to the financial system was there ever a
time when you felt the need to 'supervise' them very closely rather than
regulate certain activities and allow other, more dangerous, unregulated
activities to be carried out in London, the largest financial centre on
Earth?

Did any of you understand the business model of Northern Rock?

Did anyone not think that lending 125% of the value of a home was
irresponsible?

Did you really learn some lessons from Northern Rock and if so why weren't
they applied immediately?

Did John Tiner foresee any of this and why isn't he being questioned along
with Howard Davies in the same manner as Alan Greenspan was in the US?

Why are the bank auditors not being questioned about the accounts supplied
to the FSA?

Why were Bradford and Bingley shareholders misled, or coerced, into
subscribing to the rights issue when there was a high probability it would
be nationalised?

Why was the RBS rights issue allowed to go ahead and cause unnecessary
losses for shareholders?

What hope is there for shareholders to subscribe to rights issues in future
given that the facts are not available and neither are dividends?

Why were golden parachutes and pensions handed to FSA staff who left, and
are leaving, as this was unfolding while they criticised banks for similar
practices?

Does the FSA think it has achieved the Statutory Objective of "maintaining
confidence in the financial system"?

Has the FSA been so busy with intangibles such as the Retail Distribution
Review and Treating Customers Fairly initiatives that it missed the bigger
picture?

Does the FSA now recognise that small advisers are not a threat to the
financial system and that it should foster a new, open and transparent,
relationship with the distribution model which generates the lowest
proportion of complaints yet pays the highest proportion of FSA fees and is
burdened by an unwarranted level of regulatory burdens by ratio of size?

Why does Barclays have six months to comply with the Financial Services
Authority's (FSA) new capital ratio target, but not Lloyds TSB ?

How did the FSA arrive at its new capital ratio targets for the banks?

Were the new capital requirements calculated according to transparent
principles and can we know what they are?

Why do Ministers believe that a bank is able to sustainably borrow at 12%
yet lend at much lower rates?

Is it right that small savers both directly through shareholdings and
indirectly through pensions and savings should lose out on dividend income
because of the onerous lending terms?

Who has been 'leaking' so much detail to Robert Peston of the BBC?

We are expecting a public inquiry into the involvement of the Bank of
England, the FSA and HM Treasury in all of this, will Ministers demand one?


Evan Owen
The IFA Defence Union
Preswylfa
Dyffryn Ardudwy
Gwynedd
LL44 2EH

Tel

Aifa urges FSA to separate the barbers from the surgeons - 3 November 2008

 

 

 

WITH AN AIFA FRIEND LIKE THIS WHO NEEDS AN FSA ENEMY?

 

I'm sorrry Chris you are wrong on a number of points:

 

Q: Aifa’s new report, The Future of Retail Financial Services, calls for an advice profession with higher qualifications and standards, access to the whole of the market and remuneration models agreed between the adviser and the client.

 

A: Cut the industry down by two thirds - this should resolve the savings crisis at a stroke!  IFA complaints are 4%. However if we look beyond that we can see that excluding endowments the actual figure is 1.4%. Independent Financial Advisers (IFA's) generate 80%* of distribution but are only responsible for 1.4% of complaints! It comes a little surprise to read that, now the FSA-orchestrated hindsight review of mortgage related endowments is finally fading into history, we are seeing a dramatic increase in the proportion of complaints against banks and other large financial services organisations. What this tells us is that the business transacted by IFAs represents the lowest risk to consumer interests. 

 

Q: Aifa director general Chris Cummings says: “At some point surgeons stopped being barbers and become a recognised profession. The advice community has shaken off its old-ties but keeps being tarnished because of the behaviour of others who have appropriated the advice word, who wish to be cloaked in professional language, but who won't accept the higher standards. These are barbers not surgeons and the consumer must be protected from them.”

 

A: The industry has been "tarnished" by retrospective regulatory reviews and bankrupted by regulatory failures. If surgeons were paid via fees rather than by the NHS there would be a lot of dead patients and many more bankrupt! Public sewers have done more for public health than have the medical profession. If you want to use the surgeon analogy then perhaps you should be talking about a NHS funded advice system to pay for it all!  There are currently 6,000 outstanding complaints and regulatory investigations against solicitors. Each year about 200 lawyers are found guilty of breaching the solicitors' rules and sentenced by the Law Society's Solicitors' Disciplinary Tribunal (SDT). You are wrong if you think higher qualifications will resolve complaints.

 

Q: Cummings says: “It should be made clear here that we see advice and sales as being options that consumers can select between; that they can and should be supportive and increasingly leverage better consumer outcomes. We must recognise consumer-buying behaviour that exists in all other markets, where people vary between seeking advice and opting to make transactions.

 

A: Well what does that mean: "increasingly leverage consumer outcomes!" Chris you should have written the RDR it was equally unintelligible!

 

Regards

 

SIMON MANSELL

 

[Simon Mansell] -----Original Message-----
From: IFADUglegroups.com [mailto:IFADoglegroups.com]On Behalf Of Evan
Sent: 03 November 2008 13:52
To: IFADUoglegroups.com
Subject: [IFADU] Aifa urges FSA to separate the barbers from the surgeons - 3 November 2008

Aifa urges FSA to separate the "barbers" from the "surgeons"

Nicole Blackmore | 03-Nov-2008

The Association of Independent Financial Advisers has urged the FSA to use its retail distribution review to help consumers re-engage with savings and support the development of a distinct advisory profession.

Aifa’s new report, The Future of Retail Financial Services, calls for an advice profession with higher qualifications and standards, access to the whole of the market and remuneration models agreed between the adviser and the client.

The trade body says only those who meet the requirements should be termed as offering financial advice.

Aifa director general Chris Cummings says: “At some point surgeons stopped being barbers and become a recognised profession. The advice community has shaken off its old-ties but keeps being tarnished because of the behaviour of others who have appropriated the advice word, who wish to be cloaked in professional language, but who won't accept the higher standards. These are barbers not surgeons and the consumer must be protected from them.”

The report also proposes that Money Guidance will act as an introduction to the retail financial services market and a sales channel will service those who do not want their financial circumstances considered by an adviser.

Cummings says: “It should be made clear here that we see advice and sales as being options that consumers can select between; that they can and should be supportive and increasingly leverage better consumer outcomes. We must recognise consumer buying behaviour that exists in all other markets, where people vary between seeking advice and opting to make transactions.

“Also, in some sectors of the industry, there is a ‘myth of scarcity’ but we believe that our focus should be on attracting and re-engaging those who have turned their backs on the sector, and the RDR is the tool to achieve this goal.”

Source: Money Marketing

moneymarketing.co.uk was built by Sift Group Ltd.
Money Marketing is a division of Centaur Media plc  ©2007.

 

 

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Lord Turner - fee charges to large banks are proportionately small against the amounts paid by IFAs

 

---

From: Simon Mansell
Sent: 20 October 2008 13:05
To: scott.sinclair
Cc: evan.owen
Subject: Lord Turner - fee charges to large banks are proportionately small against the amounts paid by IFAs

Lord Turner, chairman of the FSA, acknowledged in an interview with the Financial Times (FT) its fee charges to large banks are proportionately small against the amounts paid by IFAs.

I wounder if the press and the government know how strong the feelings are on this subject. We now learn the FSA has "NOT" been charging the banks as well as "NOT" regulating them! For years the IFA has been used as as a soft touch as the FSA (staffed by former bankers) consider their next IFA red tape business frustration scheme, and all of this in spite of the evidence! Consider the latest Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) statistics on their website. These highlight how few compliants IFA's have compared to banks. The latest breakdown of consumer complaints for 2007/08:
 
Banks: 59%
IFA's: 4%
 
The headlines have majored on IFA complaints falling to 4%. However if we look beyond that we can see that excluding endowments the actual figure is 1.4% .
Independent Financial Advisers (IFA's) generate 80%* of distribution but are only responsible for 1.4% of complaints! 

 

There seems to be a conventional wisdom" shared by the chattering classes who unfortunately often repeat but but never challenge this wisdom. The problem being: "A lie told often enough becomes truth",
and certainly this FSA lie has found its way into the popular mind set of regulatory policy as evidenced in the FSA Retail Distribution Review, a scheme disigned to benefit the banks. The view that the FSA has peddled is that banks are good and IFA's are bad! Well events have caught the FSA with their regulatory pants down yet again! A very short time ago Dr Huertas, Director Wholesale Firms Division FSA summed this misguided belief up when he stated:  'Commission-based distribution arrangements tend to lead to conflicts of interest and may result in mis-selling." The Dr went on to say: "How do we solve this conundrum? We are genuinely interested in working with banks to find a way to do so." I might add this was before the banks fell apart under the FSA watch!  

 

Don't pay the FSA more money to a bad job ever worse start demanding value for money and "whole of market regulation" to include banks.   

Regards

Simon Mansell
 
Simon Mansell BA (Hons) Law 
Managing Director -

Temple Bar IFA Ltd 
 
(Office: 01905 75 77 48 
(Fax:     01905 75 77 49 
: Email: 
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Address:

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TEMPLE BAR

INDEPENDENT FINANCIAL ADVICE LTD

For High Net Worth Individuals, Business Owners and their Key Employees.

 

Regulated and authorised by the Financial Services Authority

 

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How much more is more?

 

---

From: Simon Mansell

Sent: 18 October 2008 17:56
To: Owen, Evan
Subject: How much more is more?

Evan


How much more is more?

How do they get away with it? The FSA asleep on their watch are to be
rewarded with more staff on higher salaries. In fact the Conservatives
want them to be paid so well they will be on a par with the City Fat
Cats they were supposed to be regulating! This is required says FSA
chairman Lord Turner, to regulate the banks better! The truth is they
have not been regulating the banks at all never mind "better". The issue
is not regulating the banks better it's about regulating the banks in
the first place instead of kicking a soft IFA target.

How much more is more? The regulator already costs us more than £300
million a year. Its costs rose by more than 12% in 2007/08 and the pay
bill for its Directors grew by 22%.

Tell me, could it have been any worse if we didn't have an FSA, for sure
we would have been £300 million better off?

Regards


SIMON MANSELL

New Government Website?

Due to the financial crisis the Government is expected shortly to launch a new brand new website - www.notme.gov.uk.

 

Interested parties will be able to click onto the website as a handy “one stop shop” to see the most up-to-date explanations to questions such as why:

 

·         The Government, The Bank of England and The Financial Services Authority all failed to stop our banks building up a mountain of toxic debts.

 

·         “The head-rolling” is limited to a tiny group of bank chairmen and chief executives who have decided now is the time to jump ship.

 

·         Despite the multi-billion pound bank bail-out, there is no direct help for ordinary businesses, charities, public organisations, let alone ordinary taxpayers pushed up to and/or beyond the brink by bank and financial market failures.

 

Unfortunately, due to technical reasons, the website will not contain a ‘contact us’ section, and will instead invite customer feedback on a future occasion which is expected to coincide with the date of the next election.

  

 Typical.............but they, the FSA, were very interested in the font size of an IFA's Key Features Document so they know how to micro manage - pity about the macro bit! D.

Gordon Brown and boom and bust

"I will not allow house prices to get out of control and put at risk the sustainability of the recovery."
Gordon Brown's 1997 Budget Statement

 

"Under this Government, Britain will not return to the boom and bust of the past."
Pre-Budget Report, 9th November 1999

 

"Britain does not want a return to boom and bust."
Budget Statement, 21 March 2000

 

"So our approach is to reject the old vicious circle of the...the old boom and bust."
Pre-Budget Report, 8 November 2000

 

"Mr Deputy Speaker we will not return to boom and bust."
Budget Statement, 7 March 2001

 

"As I have said before Mr Deputy Speaker: No return to boom and bust."
Budget Statement, 22 March 2006

 

"And we will never return to the old boom and bust."
Budget Statement, 21 March 2007

The safety of banking

 

---

From: IFADU[mailto:IFADU@googl On Behalf Of Simon Mansell
Sent: 10 October 2008 20:25
To: IFADU
Subject: [IFADU] Re: FW: The safety of banking

Per

 

Very interesting. I note the UK is ranked 9th is terms of financial sophistication & 44th in terms of banking soundness. This implies that a sophisticated financial sector tolerates a banking system with a lower ranking than Botswana. When I say tolerate perhaps I should say regulates!

 

In other words the FSA are not applying their resources to where the risk lies. Maybe too busy with the myriad of unwanted initiatives foisted on the long-suffering IFA. It would be interesting to see how regulatory costs per capita compare worldwide in order to establish if the FSA makes one jot of difference to our financial security for all the money they cost. Surely the one thing the FSA would rank highly on is cost! And remember it was the FSA who wanted to hand over a successful distribution method to a banking sector whose only claim to fame is a ranking lower than Botswana:

 

 ‘Commission-based distribution arrangements tend to lead to conflicts of interest and may result in mis-selling.”

 

And he went on to say:

 

“How do we solve this conundrum? We are genuinely interested in working with banks to find a way to do so.’

 

For a full transcript of his views click: http://tinyurl.com/52723z 

 

If you allow bankers to regulate bankers you have regulation by Croniism which equal no regulation for banks!

 

 

 

Regards

 

SIMON MANSELL

TEMPLE BAR IFA LTD

 

 

 

 

----Original Message-----
From: Behalf Of Caledonia Consultancy
Sent: 10 October 2008 15:10
To: caledoniaconsultanc
Subject: [IFADU] FW: The safety of banking

 

 

CANBERRA (Reuters) - Canada has the world's soundest banking system, closely followed by Sweden, Luxembourg and Australia, a survey by the World Economic Forum has found as financial crisis and bank failures shake world markets.

 

But Britain, which once ranked in the top five, has slipped to 44th place behind El Salvador and Peru, after a 50 billion pound ($86.5 billion) pledge this week by the government to bolster bank balance sheets. The United States, where some of Wall Street's biggest financial names have collapsed in recent weeks, rated only 40, just behind Germany at 39, and smaller states such as Barbados, Estonia and even Namibia, in southern Africa. The United States was on Thursday considering buying a slice of debt-laden banks to inject trust back into lending between financial institutions now too wary of one another to lend.

 

The World Economic Forum's Global Competitiveness Report based its findings on opinions of executives, and handed banks a score between 1.0 (insolvent and possibly requiring a government bailout) and 7.0 (healthy, with sound balance sheets).

Canadian banks received 6.8, just ahead of Sweden (6.7), Luxembourg (6..7), Australia (6.7) and Denmark (6.7).

 

UK banks collectively scored 6.0, narrowly behind the United States, Germany and Botswana, all with 6.1. France, in 19th place, scored 6.5 for soundness, while Switzerland's banking system scored the same in 16th place, as did Singapore (13th).

The ranking index was released as central banks in Europe, the United States, China, Canada, Sweden and Switzerland slashed interest rates in a bid to end to panic selling on markets and restore trust in the shaken banking system.

 

The Netherlands (6.7), Belgium (6.6), New Zealand (6.6), Malta (6.6) rounded out the WEF's banking top 10 with Ireland, whose government unilaterally pledged last week to guarantee personal and corporate deposits at its six major banks.

Also scoring well were Chile (6.5, 18th) and Spain, South Africa, Norway, Hong Kong and Finland all ending up in the top 20. At the bottom of the list was Algeria in 134th place, with its banks scoring 3.9 to be just below Libya (4.0), Lesotho (4.1), the Kyrgyz Republic (4.1) and both Argentina and East Timor (4.2).

 

RANKINGS

1. Canada

2. Sweden

3. Luxembourg

4. Australia

5. Denmark

6. Netherlands

7. Belgium

8. New Zealand

9. Ireland

10. Malta

11. Hong Kong

12. Finland

13. Singapore

14. Norway

15. South Africa

16. Switzerland

17. Namibia

18. Chile

19. France

20. Spain

--------------------------------------------

124. Kazakhstan

125. Cambodia

126. Burundi

127. Chad

128. Ethiopia

129. Argentina

130. East Timor

131. Kyrgyz Republic

132. Lesotho

133. Libya

134. Algeria

 

SOURCE: World Economic Forum Global Competitiveness Report 2008-2009.

 

See attached complete list and financial report

 

Per Oszadlik @

Caledonia Consultancy

27 Gloucester Avenue

Clarkston, G76 7LH

East Renfrewshire

 

Phone:  07717 130 031

Fax:    0141 638 8877

Email:  caledoniaconsult 

Member of the Association of Professional Compliance Consultants

 

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