Highlights from our Retail Investor Event 2022
Boring Money held its first live event of the year on the 28th of September in the city. The half-day Retail Investor conference shared the latest news, insights, data, and discussion points around all things retail.
We hosted a collection of industry experts and speakers to unpack some of the most critical questions for our industry as we manage growth and opportunity, with market downturns, consumer scepticism and increasing regulatory demands. Our three panel topics were around Sustainable Investing, The Changing Face of Advice and Consumer Duty.
Here’s what they had to say…
The FCA on Sustainable Investing
At the Boring Money Retail Investor Event 2022, the FCA’s Senior Associate for ESG Policy and Advisory, Gwil Mason, outlined what firms should expect in the upcoming policy statement on sustainable disclosures, due to be published in the Autumn.
He mentioned,
“Entity and product level disclosures, building on our TCFD rules which allow disclosure of climate related financial disclosures, and then a sustainability enabling classification system for products based on intentionality, based on what is this product trying to do when it comes to sustainability and how it's trying to achieve that sustainability objective.”
“There will be other things we will be consulting on, such as naming marketing rules which flow from the labels, and rules for distributors which makes sure the information is passed along to consumers".
Our recent Sustainable Investment Report disclosed that greenwashing remains a major concern, with 25% of investors and nearly a quarter of savers who would consider investing (24%) reporting concern about greenwashing/the mis-selling of funds when it comes to choosing to invest in a sustainable way.
The challenge identified by the panel was that:
"We know that consumer trust in the market can be damaged by greenwashing. If enough of that happens then there are market integrity problems there, and again that is going into one of our objectives and is something we need to address."
You can download our slides on Sustainable Investing here.
The Advice Gap
At the Boring Money Retail Investor event 2022, we also discussed the growing Advice Gap with Andrew Firth, Founder and CEO of Wealth Wizards, and Ruth Handcock, CEO of Octopus Investments.
In her opening statement, Ruth revealed that,
“Firstly, the advice gap is massive... even when it comes to retail banking, which is much more straightforward than investments and some things that people are much more familiar with, people are really scared of money. They say things like 'it makes me feel stupid when I talk about my money' or 'I feel like I’m always losing'.”
She went onto say,
“People don't feel confident or capable to make financial decisions without help."
Our Advice Report, published in April 2022, sized the Advice Gap to be 13.2 million people - up by an additional 0.5 million from 2021. This includes 4 million cash savers who could invest but do not, and the 9.2 million non-advised investors who express low confidence. The value of assets in the Advice Gap totalled £840 billion, which has similarly grown by a massive £113bn since 2021.
You can download our slides on The Changing Face of Advice here.
The Challenge with Consumer Duty
During our panel on Consumer Duty, Chris Woolard EY, Partner, Chair of the Global Regulatory Network discussed some of the biggest issues that can be seen in the market. He spoke of the “lack of thought throughout the whole value chain.” He stated.
“Sometimes consumer duty can seem a bit... esoteric, it's a new principle, it feels like what is this? How do I get my hands around it? And I think it's really worth remembering, every single prosecution that the FCA bring, starts with a breach of principles... so this is an enforcement tool and very deliberately so to try and drive that more joined up view of the customer.”
Research from our Online Investing 2023 Report highlights that the industry still has some way to go in terms of ensuring that investors are confident to meet their personal investment objectives. 44% of new and 50% of established investors score themselves 0-5 out of 10 when deciding what investments, funds, shares etc. to buy. This perfectly illustrates why retail investment providers must develop products aligned with the FCA’s Consumer Duty and the importance of considering the end customer.
You can find out more about our data insights and how we support the industry to build better products, comms, and services for investors by E-mailing, research@boringmoney.co.uk.
