Communities have the power to inspire new thinking and create change. As part of our effort to bring together thinkers and leaders in financial services, we built out the agenda for the first NextWealth Live conference, taking place on 26 March 2019 at the Royal Institution in London.

The Royal Institution is where Michael Faraday discovered the principles of electromagnetism. In the spirit of Faraday, we believe that we need to push the boundaries of discovery in wealth.

Our conference

We will focus on three core themes:

• NextCustomer
• NextAdvice
• NextFlows

We start by asking some bosses to share their views. Andy Bell of AJ Bell and Adrian Grace of Aegon will discuss the diversity of models in the industry.

AJ Bell today listed the business: it will be fascinating to hear how Andy has built his business to diversify beyond SIPPs to include an investment platform, fund and discretionary management capabilities.

Adrian is a believer in the advantages of scale to deliver value to investors. But at the heart of his vision is horizontal integration, where clients can move seamlessly from the workplace to advice, as they go from accumulation to retirement.

We will also hear from Otto Thoresen, the chairman of NEST, on the next generation of investors: what makes them tick and how to better support them.

And that’s just the start. Be sure to find out more and register to attend here.

Working together: Co-opetition

As the pace of change accelerates, we all recognise that our shared industry problems will only be solved by collaboration and shared standards. We call it “co-opetition” a combination of cooperation and competition among companies.

Blockchain is an example where we can work together to shape the future of our industry. Calastone’s recent announcement that it will move fund transactions on the blockchain is one to watch.

As we move towards these industry-wide solutions, firms need a clear understanding of their competitive differentiators. Those close to the customer are in a strong position. We’re thrilled that NextWealth Live can shape some of this thinking.

Our articles and blog posts

Shape of Flows: Retail Fund Distribution by Channel. UK fund flows are on the verge of a massive shift and our latest report offers our view of these changes and their impact. Flows are concentrating to a shrinking number of funds. Retail assets are being re-broked for lower fees. New money is coming in the form of strategic partnerships, deals that come around infrequently and are typically at a lower margin than retail funds.

Women in Investment: Face-to-face with Heather Hopkins. Video interview on Investment Week’s website about Heather’s career and how to promote diversity in the industry. This video was produced to mark one year since she was awarded “Team Leader of the Year” at the Women in Investments awards.

Read Elsewhere

The FCA this week published key findings of a review on DB transfer advice. It stated: “We are disappointed to have found that less than 50% of the advice we reviewed was suitable.” Huh? Less than half?! That’s horrendous. But an astute New Model Adviser reader (@pompomadoodle) noted the 18 firms in the review would have had to do 4 DB transfers per working day.

Elsewhere, Monzo raised £20bn on Wednesday morning through a crowd funding campaign. The challenger bank, now officially a unicorn (unlisted start up valued at over $1bn), holds the record for the highest amount of capital raised by a fintech company in a single crowdfunding round.

To get our newsletter direct to your inbox each month please subscribe.

About the Author

Heather is a data and research expert specialising in retail investment distribution. Heather is the Managing Director and Founder of NextWealth. She is also a Director of Clive Waller Consulting Ltd and serves as Vice-Chair of The Investment Network and the Schroders UK Platform Awards.