Monday, July 03, 2017

"Ripping off customers is nothing new for asset managers... "

Check the FT article here 30 June 2017

The FCA’s report is a travesty that is bereft of remedies, writes Gina Miller

In 2002, the Sandler Report on the UK retail investment market found “the reporting of product charges is typically neither clear nor consistent”. More than 15 years on and the UK regulator is still allowing the industry to rip off customers by charging excessive fees, which has a huge detrimental impact on the returns investors are getting on their hard-earned money.

Granting people the basic consumer right of knowing how much they are paying appears to be too difficult for an industry that works with complex data, facts and figures. In terms of price competition, there simply cannot be any genuine price competition if the consumer does not know the price.

This is why, as the most recent FCA report reveals, the asset management industry has profit margins of 36 per cent. This is more than double the operating margin of the FTSE pharmaceutical and biotechnology sector (14 per cent), which is based on intellectual capital and extending lives.

When the FCA’s interim report came out in November 2016, it was hard hitting and exposed the numerous dubious practices SCM Direct has been highlighting for years through our True and Fair campaign: closet index tracking, hidden fees, consultants’ conflicts of interest and false reporting of performance.....

check out full report here and get angry if you have any pension or investment plans. You are being ripped off. When you exclude their bonuses the profit of fund managers is not 36% but 48%. 

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