It’s funny how sometimes a couple of events can coincide that bring an issue into strong relief.
That has been the case in the past week or so.
Firstly ING brought a lady out from Australia who reports to NZ advisers that their counterparts across the Tasman are – as we described it – being driven “nutty” by having to comply with tougher regulatory standards. One manifestation is they are claiming on their disability policies. So much so that their claim rate is eight times higher than many other occupational groups.
Clearly this has a big cost for the advisers, the insurers, and – as some suggest companies which have buyer of last resort agreements (no doubt plenty of these are being triggered).
With that spectre throwing a shadow across their features, advisers were all ears when Commerce Minister Lianne Dalziel spoke about some of the pros and cons of licensing the advisory industry in New Zealand.
In her first ever address to advisers at the annual Financial Planner of the Year Awards Dalziel confirmed the Government has yet to make up its mind on licensing for advisers.
While other groups like immigration consultants will be regulated by this government it doesn’t necessarily follow that financial advisers will face the same impost.
As we have reported before, and as the government has acknowledged, New Zealand will get a slap over the wrist from the International Monetary Fund (which has just completed a review of this country’s securities laws) for not having a licensing regime – however no one seems that worked up about that eventuality.
In other news this week Tower has reported its annual result. While the bottom line for the 12 months is pretty horrible – a loss close to $150 million – there are signs things are turning around.
Clearly the market didn’t think much of the result, marking the shareprice back, but it seems things are pointing in the right direction. The New Zealand life business is strong, investments went backwards but there are signs funds flow has stabalised, and Australia, while still problematic, appears to be getting better.
What will be interesting is to compare Tower with AMP as they both ran into trouble at the same time. When it happened AMP got the brownie points (from me at least) for moving quickly to sort out its problems, while Tower had one crisis, followed by another and another.
A year later Tower seems to be getting better and AMP still has to execute its UK/Downunder split.
The big day for this is just over a week away. One interesting rumour floating around the market is that a financial services firm is going to try the old good bank/bad bank routine and “quarantine” all its old products in one entity and start a new business, complete with a new brand and product range. Could this be AMP’s strategy? ***As we write this AMP shares have been put on a trading halt – find out more at www.sharechat.co.nz
And this year’s staples, Exemption notices and RFRM bubble along. At Parliament the magnitude of the exemption notice problem was revealed. Perhaps what was more interesting is that while lawyers represented many of the dozen or so managers in the pooh on this issue, they weren’t naming their clients. The one exception was a lawyer who verbally named a client which until then had been anonymous in written submissions!
