Regulation
Expectation and consultation
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has published its portfolio letter for financial advisers and intermediaries, here. Key themes include suitable advice, pension and investment scams, firm failures/phoenixing and ongoing services, along with others such as diversity and inclusion. It has also announced new proposals to make it cheaper and easier for firms to advise consumers about certain mainstream investments within stocks and shares ISAs. Read more about the consultation in the press release here.
Concentrating on CP86
Speaking at a PWC event, Director of Securities and Markets Supervision at the Central Bank of Ireland, Patricia Dunne, previewed the results of the latest round of CP86 resourcing reviews: CEOs (where they expect that all but the smallest fund management companies have a CEO); Director time commitments (where they expect directors to be mindful of whether their commitments are sustainable); Designated Persons & Support Staff (with a focus on resources growing in line with the nature, scale and complexity of the business); INED Tenure (with fewer INEDs with a tenure of greater than 10 years, and questions about the independence of those with 10+ years); Board Diversity (with marginal increase in gender balance and the expectation of diversity being considered on fund boards). Read the full remarks here.
US fund boards under fire
During their national compliance seminar earlier this month, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), detailed common ways fund boards are falling short of their 15(c) contract renewal duties. Read more in Board IQ, here.
Responsible Investment
Demanding green
The Ignites Europe article here looks at the resilience in client demand for responsible investment funds over the first nine months of 2022.
ESG across assets
The UN Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) has issued a report on the tricky business of aggregating climate change metrics across multiple asset classes. See the full details here.
Ambition ambivalence
And at the PRI’s recent conference, ShareAction, chief executive officer Catherine Howarth commented that some asset managers are “retreating” on their ESG ambitions and not working in the best interests of their beneficiaries. The comments reported on in Ignites Europe here.
Governance
Board breakdown
Highlights from the latest UK Spencer Stuart Board Index, analysing the board governance practices of the top 150 FTSE companies, is out now here.
On the important topic of fund board composition specifically, the new Fund Board Council (FBC) Board Composition Database (FBC Database), November 2022 edition, is available here. The FBC Database analyses data covering the boards of over 80 UK authorised fund managers, including almost 500 board directors, to provide insight including gender split and director numbers.
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