One of the worrying things for the financial services industry at the moment, and this is advisers, fund manager and life companies, is that the burden of regulation is going to be crippling.
It seems nearly every week there are more calls for more regulation and more compliance. One has to wonder whether this will actually help the consumer or is just a reaction to the recent problems in financial markets.
This week Good Returns has reported on the Capital Markets Taskforce which had a good go at advisers. Some of the comments were no surprise, considering the make-up of the committee. The unfortunate thing is that the government will probably take the comments as gospel.
To add a little balance into the equation we have also run an industry reaction piece commenting on the report. It's well worth a read to see what others are saying and it also raises familiar old issues.
Also with regulation, Chapman Tripp reckon that under the proposed new rules advisers will become personally liable for advice and won't be able to hide behind companies for protection. How many advisers knew this?
Meanwhile, there appears to still be a lot of discussion around what products fall into category one and category two. In Insurance News there is a suggestion that life insurance products will fall into category one and therefore risk advisers will have to meet higher standards than they have been expecting.
There is plenty of action around groups at the moment in all parts of the industry; financial planning, insurance and mortgages. One crowd that was looking to expand after buying Phillip King's Tauranga-based business Ellerie Cornwall was IRG.
It appears IRG is facing its own problems and will have trouble expanding from its present bases which is built around a transactional business and a magazine.
The big news this morning has been some big jumps in home loan rates. SBS was the first lender to move its rates in the past month. Yesterday it hiked its six-month and one-year fixed rates 10 basis points each to 5.60% and 5.70%.
Today ASB, Bank Direct and Sovereign have gone even further. They have increased all rates with a duration of 18 months or more and made significant increases. The biggest have been to three-year rates which are up 50 basis points each, four years are up 40 points and two and five-year terms are up 30 points each.
We analyse the move and look at swap rates in this article; SBS raises rates: Will others follow?
Also you can check and compare home loan rates at our comprehensive table here.
The main deposit rate news this week has been that the Reserve Bank has exempted some non-bank deposit takers from getting a credit rating (but won't name names) and former Equiticorp boss Allan Hawkins is making progress recovering money from loan books of collapsed finance companies Western Bay and Nation Finance 2000.
Now a piece of news many advisers have been waiting for; Where is Boris now he has left ING? You can find out in our People section here.
Have a great weekend.
Philip
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