TRAP: The Real Adviser Podcast

73 - The Network Effect

• Alan Smith; Andy Hart; Carl Widger; Nick Lincoln • Episode 73

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In this latest pile of TRAP, the Trap Pack discuss

  • Topical Titbits
  • Meat and Potatoes: The Network Effect
  • Culture Corner
  • TRAPist question(s) from Dave Quinn www.twitter.com/investwiseFP

Show links: http://tiny.cc/traplinks

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Unknown:

Foreign Welcome to The Real advisor podcast, T, R, A, P, T, T, please follow us and join in the conversation on Twitter at advisor podcast, where you can suggest ideas and themes you'd like the track team to discuss. Also remember to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel and leave a six out of five star review on iTunes. Doing all this really, really helps us, which means we can do more to help you. Now, let's head over to the studio for the latest pile of track.

Nick Lincoln:

Yes, indeed, dear trappers, welcome back to what many people are calling episode 73 of the real advisor podcast, T, R, E, P, trap. My name is lick minkoln, and joining me, as ever, are the three other Horsemen of the Apocalypse, Alan the storyteller, Smith and the ultra heart and Carl, the voice della voci widgeon, Now gentlemen, we have a show packed full of apps, absolutely nothing. So let's start unpacking it straight away with some more high energy review reads or read, read out by my very good friend, the right honorable Mr. Andrew Usain Hart,

Andy Hart:

thank you, my friend, the band's back together. One review today, we're running a little bit short, at least it's a five star, not like the previous couple of one stars we've had, but all is good. This is from Matthew slesel, five stars entitled team meeting. I own a small IFA practice in Carlisle, and this brilliant podcast helps me keep up to date on relevant advisory issues and topical events. Great content. Keep up the good work. Back to you, boss.

Nick Lincoln:

Great stuff. Thank you. Matthew slice, thank you for giving your name. Thank you for the positive review. We do appreciate them. We don't mind the one star reviews either. Well, we don't want a three star reviews. If we start getting a swathe of three star reviews, we're going to can the whole thing. Okay, let's put a topical timestamp on episode 73 by addressing some topical tip, it's quite a bit going on. Obviously. Watch wasn't around for the last episode. We had Rob Stephenson in his place, and that was a very well received episode. So watch, the pressure is on, and we have a carry forward item for you from the previous episode, and you're going to start us off with small caps.

Carl Widger:

I am. But first of all, can I just say thank you very much to rob. I thought it was a really good episode, and lots of people told me, in fact, it was the best episode ever. So thanks to everybody who gave me that feedback. I really appreciate it. But genuinely, having someone like Robin who's just, he just knows his stuff, it was absolutely brilliant and great to get an expert and an expert view. Yeah, so

Unknown:

this article, as opposed to us, he said, he said it himself,

Andy Hart:

was the wedding, moderate drinking. How was it? Well,

Carl Widger:

it was a good call to give the podcast to skip moving swiftly along. Yeah. So this was an article I found. So look, it can sometimes be difficult to, I suppose, explain to clients as to where your investment philosophy is coming from. And this article, kind of, you know, basically, is saying there are some people arguing that the small cap tilt should be ditched all together, and it's no longer something that's going to derive value for clients in the long term. It's a nice little short article. It gives a couple of three or four points as to why the argument for including small caps. I thought it was really nice, really short, good little piece that you know, if you want just a couple of points to be saying to your clients, there's a couple of interesting things, like, there's eight years of under performance. Now, right? So it's kind of, I think there's a lot of us sitting in our seats saying, right, we wouldn't mind to see a couple of years of out performance. But the article does say that between 1989 and 2005 the small caps underperformed, but then they came, came good. So look, I suppose it's the age old challenge here of explaining to clients about the nature of long term investing, and that difficulty, you know, saying that you know, long term investing could be 20, 3040, years. So it's tricky, but I just thought nice article to give you a couple of pointers

Nick Lincoln:

when it comes, when it if it comes, but when it comes the small cap premium comes in bloody great big waves. So you know, it's this there, and that suddenly, then will make the last decade or so look, look, look way better it comes in, has come in massive chunks premium when it has, when it turns up.

Alan Smith:

It's interesting, though, isn't it? Because this is all about relative performance, right? So and relative, because mega cap, ie the mag seven is true, no one can compare with it. And I mean, here we might have to wait for a bit longer, if you listen or watch as I do, I think most of us do the all in podcasts, all these kind of technology billionaires, not anymore, too political, not for you. Call. I still, sorry, it has. It has got a bit political. But you know, these guys are deep in the weeds of the tech scene, and they see how AI innovation, and there's this clearly, those established players, the big, you know, the Googles and the metas and all rest of it, they've just got such a huge advantage now, because they've got a network they've got the network effect, and you just wonder, of course, things, things are cyclical, things comfortable, but we might have to wait a bit longer, because those are likely to dominate in the in the eyes of those guys who know far more about it than we do, for likely to do the big mega caps, likely to dominate for a fair bit, fair bit longer because of what their established position versus the kind of new upstart businesses,

Andy Hart:

it's astronomical. The numbers, especially, you know, keeping companies like Microsoft, it's just insane how big they're going to get. And they're already ginormous.

Carl Widger:

It's it's interesting to read some of the amounts of money that those mega caps are investing in. Ai, yeah. But also, they're the long lead in time that they're prepared to wait, yeah, so they can earn money for years, hundreds of millions, to not get left behind, really understanding Yeah, and understanding that this is not going to generate return for them anytime soon, but if they don't do it, they'll be the Kodak, so they have to do. So that's we totally went off on a tangent there, as we tend to do, but we,

Nick Lincoln:

let's bring it back on site. That's okay, yeah, so we're talking about very successful mega cap. US tech stocks, Smithy, bring us back down to Earth with UK micros

Alan Smith:

this. Yeah, there's an article I picked up last week. And we've actually talked about this before and predicted it as it would happen. It was focused on the aim market and Carl, think you know that that's the kind of the more the micro cap, instead of sits beneath the FTSE. FTSE 250 effectively, smaller businesses. And was, you know, was created years ago to create opportunity for capital raising, liquidity, etc, for smaller businesses that you know they're not, they're not, they're not FTSE size. FTSE 100. FTSE 250 size. Yet there

Carl Widger:

might be soon, because there'll be nobody left in the footsie 100 but anyway, moving to the footsie, 100

Unknown:

still bigger than the Irish stock market. Calm down. Calm down. Calm

Alan Smith:

anyway. But of course, what happened? Of course, in her wisdom, our current chancellor, Rachel halved the tax benefit. You know, there was a one of the you know, as we've often said, incentives drive behavior, as Charlie Munger has been quoted saying several times in the past. And I think one of the attractions, of course, of a of investing in these smaller cap businesses was you got quite a significant tax break in doing so, certainly an inheritance tax break multiple companies, fund managers, micro cap, stock manage stock, stock brokers and portfolio managers created portfolios predominantly, you know, letting the tax tail wag the investment dog in that look. It is more risky. It's more volatile. But you, you know, if you, if you popped your clogs, they are inheritance tax free effectively, so that if only, if only it worked. Yeah, if only it works. So great, so, but that has been halved that that benefit. So a lot of people who who held investments in that are looking elsewhere. Some of the companies that are in aim are looking to exit aim, either for a full, full FTSE listing or or go elsewhere, because they're some of the capital is, is is dried up. But the other thing worth noting on this, despite all the kind of positive benefits of it, the the actual rich and the, you know, I spoken about this in the past as well, the actual return covered this before the return. I mean, yeah, I mean, there's, like, it just says there's been a lack of appetite for some time, some time now, the investments have dropped 28.7 of the last three years. In a

Andy Hart:

declined by a third last three years.

Alan Smith:

Backdrop of just, you know how, you know mega just kind of related to our previous point, how mega cap stocks and even the FTSE 100 has done the last couple of years has done pretty well, relatively so the demand for this market, and even, you know, the products, the inheritance tax focused products, there's likely to be far less demand from the future. But there is an interesting article all about this in the show notes.

Carl Widger:

Okay, it's funny when I listen to you guys like inheritance tax. Seems to be driving an awful lot of stuff at the moment. Is that a fair comment? Or Yes, yeah, there's big

Nick Lincoln:

changes front it's front and center because these pen the pension pots coming back into the IHT net car. That's really, really Yeah, and that's not yet happened, obviously, until April 2027 it, you know, theoretically it might. Happen? Who knows, but it's, you know, it's going to happen that has raised up, back up the agenda.

Andy Hart:

Can you guys remember the stats it was mentioned at the recent Vanguard conference about, you know, keep it simple, a couple here gets hit. Assets, over a million. I think in the US it's something like 13 million on average,

Nick Lincoln:

something like 25 Yeah, let's call it 20

Andy Hart:

million for argument's sake. So here we you get caught once your assets go over a million, which these days with asset inflation, properties flying, stock market flying, it's not that hard to breach that gap. Now, pensions are caught within it. So yeah, the US is about 20 million, so some more and more families just getting caught up by a car

Carl Widger:

before before 2027 rules kick in. Um, your pension fund was just paid tax free, is it or Yes? So

Andy Hart:

yeah, you could have a million pounds house and a 2 million pounds pension pot. The 2 million pounds straight to whoever you wish doesn't fall into the Irish team net. Now that 2 million is added to the million, you're in 3 million. So you're in whole heap of tax mess. So, yeah, huge,

Nick Lincoln:

and just, just without getting into the wheel. So, and they want the way they want the IHT settle is not for the recipients to pay the IHT. They want the Life Assurance. They want the pension providers, okay, the IHT, so it's gonna be, like, four or five pension pots. It's gonna be

Carl Widger:

interesting. Is that inter spousal as well as two kids, are just

Nick Lincoln:

it's not on first. No, you can give it to your spouse free of inheritance, but,

Andy Hart:

but as that may be changed,

Alan Smith:

I bought, I often, you know, said and experienced. It is the most hated tax of them all most emotive, because there's a real sense, you know, I've got to pay income tax along the way. I kind of begrudgingly get capital gains tax on, um, I've always said capital gains tax on success, growth, yeah. But hang on, once I paid all this, I'm a VAT, I'm a fuel duty. I'm blah, blah, blah, yeah, and I've managed to squirrel away a bit, then I'm taxed again. This is what clients have told me, you know, over the years, is

Nick Lincoln:

they're just, I think, I think what's, what's evil about is the way they've frozen their thresholds that as well. So a million, a million quid estate 10 years ago, actually, no, that's you're doing pretty well now in the South. You know, blast about the southeast, but that's pretty much. Most middle class families will have a property worth a million quid. Yeah, it's better saving spit of investments, and you're

Carl Widger:

well into the pensions are are in the inheritance tax, net, net, here to to kids. So it's funny, like, and we don't hear anything about it, because it's always been that case

Nick Lincoln:

when, when George, George Osborne, and they always were haircut till George Osborne, I think about 2015 changed the rules and out of the blue, he stood up at the box in the in the in Parliament and said, Oh, by the way, from going forward, pension funds liable to inheritance tax. We went Jesus Christ. And of course, the share companies of insurance companies plummeted, because everyone thought, well, that's the end of annuities every time. So he brought it in, out of the blue. But back to what you've had for, for decades and

Andy Hart:

decades, they were involved, then they're out. Now they go back in. Yeah, that's the mess.

Nick Lincoln:

Okay, watch. Brett Davidson, yeah,

Carl Widger:

this is interesting. I'm very interested to get your views on this, but especially Alan's because he's all over this, right? So Brett, I publicly shouting out, we should get breath as a guest on the podcast. For sure, the guy, the guy just, I've said it before, I won't repeat myself, but brilliant stuff. He means he

Nick Lincoln:

is balking at our appearance fee. But we can, we can haggle with him on that.

Carl Widger:

He wrote in his latest news newsletter. Well, the last one I read, so it's one of the very recent ones. If you haven't subscribed FP advance, go and subscribe to the newsletter. It's brilliant. He's arguing about, you know, tech and AI, and putting bringing loads of different programs software together in your practice, and those different software programs not talking to each other, and that becoming very, very difficult to scale, or even in a smaller firm. It becoming very difficult when you've got, if you've got so many different things on the go, and I know Alan, you, you've like, sent through some stuff, which, frankly, is mind boggling to me. When you send it through, it is awesome. Like, some of the stuff you sent through, it's like you sent through a thing recently about summarize this article for me, and I'm like, Oh my God, I've just like, this is incredible stuff. But I suppose my fear is, if we start bringing these things in piecemeal, okay, as opposed to having some kind of a joined up thinking, Are you just going to run your firm into, like, do the opposite of what you're trying to do, which is, you know, make it more efficient, streamline processes, etc. And then I suppose, if that's the case, is there, because. Yeah. Certainly, as far as I'm aware, in Ireland, there's nobody you know trying to put together the the ideal Jigsaw for a financial planning firm. So are there firms doing it? What are your thoughts on this? Should we just be embracing the tech? And if you see something cool, just bring it into your into your firm? It's I don't think so.

Andy Hart:

If anyone has

Unknown:

heard our conversation before you hit record holes and wires ever will hear about Yeah,

Andy Hart:

oh my god, this is why the box I put into my child print to my laptop charger. Alan, yeah,

Alan Smith:

that's it. Yeah, it's, I haven't read that yet. Carl, but I, I sort of, I endorse your comments about Brett. Every time I read his newsletters, I think he's, he's read my mind. He's he really understands his market, and he's on the pace about what's, what's going on, issues, challenges and opportunities in our sector. So I'll certainly read the article. Yeah, it's, it is a an interesting one in that this the speed at which, I mean, I've been going 21 years. I've always tried to adopt the latest sort of ideas and some of these new innovations. And it's been very it's it's moved at a kind of glacial pace up until now. It's very, very slow and bit by bit. But things are moving and changing really quickly. The audience, the experiences in my firm, we've kind of gone full cycle when it comes some of these new tools started appearing on the scene, you know, 18 months ago, when we were all over them, you know, adopting this trialing, this trialing, that, and we end up seriously. We ended up with about 12 different pieces of tech, some of which talked to each other, some which definitely didn't, and it was a mess, really. So we have kind of consolidated, we've distilled it down. I'm not too bothered about that. Sometimes you do have to trial things. And some things which might be great, some technology might not, hundreds it might be great for one firm, and I saw some really good technology, but in terms of the way we operate, our sort of client experience and all that is not quite right for us. Right for us. So you sort of trial it a few others, and we really sort of distill it all down. We kind of use three pieces of technology now, three core pieces. And one of the reasons that we even use three because, in theory, you could just use one as a kind of CRM system backbone all the things that you're trying to do. But I'm all about trying to have best of breed. So if you try to have something that offers just everything, end to end, onboarding clients, supporting clients, communications with clients, etc, then you are it's never going to be. Each one of those is not going to be the best of breed. You understand, not at the moment, kind of more generalist rather than specialist. So

Unknown:

that's why we've got three, but we don't have 13. And I actually did a, did a post on LinkedIn roughly about this last week, unrelated, but it's spot on in terms of your last point there, Carl, in that I would just make. I just read that Uber are rolling out the trialing, self driving cars, self driving cabs, taxis in London, Q, q1 I think, or q2 next year. So there you go. An industry that's been around for 100 years. I e taxi drivers is significantly under threat over the next few years. And Hey, isn't this likely to happen to all of us? Well, we know it is to some to one degree or another. And and I made the point that what we lack, there's a real opportunity now in that, who's the expert on all these things, who's going to come in and sort of you effectively act as a change manager, someone who's going to come in and say, right? Carl, what's going on in your business? How do you you know what? How do you serve as clients? Right? I am an expert on my team's an expert on all the tools and technology, and we're going to build you bespoke tech stack, as they say, relevant to you. Because otherwise, you know we're doing what I'm doing. Luckily, I've got a fantastic team who's able to sort of do, do the research and what have you. But having some sort of independent consultant, I'm not, I'm not aware of any out there. I'm sure we might get caught.

Carl Widger:

Like, Uber, is there? No, it's a fair point about Uber. I totally get the point. Like, is there a platform, you know, designing the technology to coordinate all these activities together? Like, that's

Alan Smith:

what they're all there are sort of tech consultants, but there aren't what? Well, I mean, I'm gonna be careful. I say there are, I suppose some people around there, there's, there's a this, AI kind of and technology consultants for the generic they don't, they wouldn't understand some of the very bespoke tools that exist. And

Andy Hart:

they're a bit chasing their tail at the moment as well. It's still, still, so

Carl Widger:

my point, like, is, there, is there not a huge opportunity? Because surely this is a massive industry worldwide. And if you're running a wealth management, financial planning business, it's the same, okay, the rules and regulations so that the voyant piece

Nick Lincoln:

breaks down. Car, that's where it breaks down. Because if you want to, if you want a one stop tech stack,

Unknown:

but yes, you're.

Nick Lincoln:

Compliance needs is anything, then it's completely different software from in the US than here. I mean completely different bit.

Carl Widger:

So you might as well just read, yeah, but say no, no taking like Brett makes. If you read the article, Brett makes the point that he knows a firm who are trying to coordinate some of these things that are talking to each other and on their own. These pieces of kit are not best in class. So they're not the best note taker. They're not, yeah, exactly. But the point is, this is an this is optimal for this firm, because they all talk to each other. So, so look, it's just, it's very interesting, and I'd love to hear if there was firms out there are software developers out there trying to coordinate a full, you know, like, how much would you pay for

Unknown:

that? I would

Alan Smith:

also say that this is happening, and because it's happening fast, because you've got these things, I don't even know what they are, but I've heard it. Just let things that jointly speak to each other, APIs, you've heard, you've heard of APIs, and that allows you, you could have your best best of breed, whatever it is, cash flow model and your best of breed, CRM, your best of breed, if it's a, you know, an AI meeting recording tool, and it's all been a bit disjointed. And again, as you know, I'm no expert, and I hear people saying, yes, I've got an API, but it's not really an API. It doesn't really work. You want this just seamless flow of data from the very first time you speak with a prospective client, and every engagement, every aspect that you do. But what the feedback I've had, literally, in the last couple of weeks is, yes, they are that's improved quite a lot, and you can have things speaking to each other, they're all the most important thing here, and what a lot of advisors in my experience, don't do. And a hands up, we haven't done this in the past, but we do do it now. It's to say, What the hell are we trying to achieve? Instead of looking at the latest shiny new object or this new AI thing has started, let's buy that in. Let's have, let's trial that. Let's say, Well, get a blank piece of paper. What are we trying to achieve, and what are we currently using? And then sort of build out the kind of roadmap and the model for on a bespoke basis for your firm. You need a tech strategy first of all, then sort of reverse engineer. The

Carl Widger:

two our strategy is to, is to wait for about a year after you've tested it, Alan, and then you'll tell me what ones to bring in and what. And I just, but I kind of don't, I kind of don't. Can I just make one point on the Uber thing, right? So you know about jobs being killed that have been around for 100 years or whatever, right? So, so the taxi driver who knows that this is coming right now has the pass endless possibilities about to how to enhance his or her service, right? The taxi driver who's sitting back and going, my job is dead, is dead, right? He's no more, or she's no more. So this is the same for every single job. It's just going to allow you bring a much, much better experience to your end user that goes for every single job and every single one

Alan Smith:

you're so right? I mean, when, when Uber first came to the UK and London a few years ago, I remember, well, the London taxi driver Association. And I'm a big fan of them, good old, you know, London cabbie

Nick Lincoln:

sorry to be sorry to be a pain. What's this got to do with financial services, technology, technology Nick, creative Schumpeter and creative capitalism? That's fine.

Unknown:

I'm just following up on Carl's point. The London taxi drivers Association blockaded City Hall. So just went there and said, do not bring Uber in. And so they're just, by getting away, getting in the way of innovation. And what you can do is say there will always be people who prefer a human driver. I'm going to make my my car the

Andy Hart:

best human just, just just to have my home, the Uber thing. The black taxi drivers protested for this coming in thing coming into London. They wanted to stop. And everyone said, Well, what is it? They said, it's Uber. It's faster, cheaper, safer, you know, you get around the city in, you know, two seconds. They basically highlighted all of the benefits of this new thing coming in that's going to basically put black cabs out of a job.

Alan Smith:

But their own device. Point is spot on. Knowing this will happen. It's innovation and it's for it's inevitable, absolutely inevitable. There's an opportunity to just carve out a different type of be, because it

Andy Hart:

it's going to impact everyone. It's going

Carl Widger:

to impact everyone. Where is this coming from? Nick, just because I see you're getting very frustrated, I'm developing a point that was brought up on trap live and was talked about about in the in the Q, a whereby, you know, always power planning is gonna, no, it's just you're gonna, but you gotta be clued in here, and you gotta see it coming. If you, if you sit back and go, Oh, Jesus, that happened after it's happened, well then that's on you. I'm afraid.

Nick Lincoln:

And I get that. I tend to get that. But the discussion point I thought, was around whether you have one tech stack or a series of tech stacks. Now we morphed into

Carl Widger:

taxi services. Yeah, we did, because that's what we do. That's how we roll

Unknown:

conversation.

Nick Lincoln:

It was orgasmic. It was great. I just couldn't enjoy it

Unknown:

quickly. Five

Nick Lincoln:

minutes. No, no, it's not PR say corner. Thanks. No, Jason, for. 525, minutes in, and we done four points, right? I'll be very quick with this. Jason, no, this is my being, my body. This thing about funds to pile into it here and in the USA. Jason spike, at this article, you're right. You're right.

Alan Smith:

Regular update of his new boyfriend from Wall Street Journal. Jason, Jason, z this,

Nick Lincoln:

this fund called the Hamilton Lane fund, so it says it buys private assets, buys them at a deep discount, then marks up the net asset value and records that markup immediately in its performance figures, which to me, is outstanding, sometimes resulting in the gains of 1,000% a day. It also then levies its ongoing fees on this marked up net asset value. Now, as I said before, Jason, because I might have mentioned this before, Jason spy, he's very careful in what he says, But he says such maneuvers are legal, but if you don't think they smell a little fishy, I suggest you make an urgent appointment with an ear, nose and throat doctor. If this, I'm calling it now, but maybe I won't mention it ever again. I'm calling it now. If this comes to the UK, if it comes to the USA, this will blow up, and this will blow up in retail investors faces, and there will be an absolute cloud. Places, and there

Alan Smith:

will be an absolute cluster Nick on that. I posted about that today, because State Street, if you've heard of State Street, they want, you know, the largest asset management company, massive the world. They publish their custodial they publish their data on private equity returns versus, you know, public markets, s p5 100, etc. So this is the first time for a while, but s p5 100, and I know it's not a fair example, but as a benchmark, s p5 100 versus the State Street private equity index, which is the mix of private equity, venture capital, private private credit, etc. So s p5 100 has outperformed it over three months, one year, three years, five years and 10 years. So normal public equity markets, albeit in a period of significant, very liquid, very cheap, very liquid, very accessible to everyone, outperformed all these private equity operations over the last decade and every period in between you are. And the other thing that we have mentioned on this in the past, not only do we have these private market companies and become more available, we have our the aforementioned Chancellor, Rachel Reeves effectively shoehorning telling companies and pension companies and workplace pensions in the UK that they must allocate. I think the target is 10, 10% 10% of their allocation. And the other thing I've said is all the this, this growth, this out performance by the public markets, has been against the backdrop of zero interest rate policy, the zero era. You know, you could borrow money for nothing, and then, you know, invest, which is where the VC markets make most of their money, supposedly leveraged, leveraged equity and leveraged debt. So it is the classic rear view mirror investing right now, but done kind of on a national level. And even, you know, there are some major institutional fund managers about to launch, or have launched, private equity funds.

Andy Hart:

I was going to say, pretty much every single investment house is going to launch a private equity fund. If they've not already this brewing at the moment, every

Unknown:

single demand they'll create the demand Carl,

Andy Hart:

because they're marketing companies, not finance companies, we are

Carl Widger:

being uh, so said, I'm sure you guys are the same. Clients are asking, well,

Alan Smith:

just check, check State Street report. I know past performance, no guarantee of future performance. But hey, it's an indication, if you can't outperform public markets during the best era for investing in private equity and debt, then God help you the next 10 years. But we are just publicly stating this right now on this date, and let's, let's all sort of revisit this in a year or two years. I

Carl Widger:

just like, I say my sister works for State Street, so I'd like to just distance myself.

Alan Smith:

Put out the independent research. They're great. They're good.

Andy Hart:

I've met your sister who works for State Street.

Unknown:

Carl, you have, yeah, what's next? Okay,

Nick Lincoln:

cool stuff. Well, Monday, maybe one day Irish pension funds will be allowed to invest in private equity. Will there be a case? Will there be something in that area? Carl, maybe that's the next point you want to talk

Carl Widger:

about. Or not, is this prsa corner?

Nick Lincoln:

Brilliant? Maybe you read through the evidence there and pulled out a very good conclusion.

Carl Widger:

Well, I was hoping for the little song, but anyway, and the absence of the little song, so this is

Nick Lincoln:

e r s a corner.

Unknown:

Oh, my word.

Nick Lincoln:

There are a million cats screaming around the country. Now listen to that.

Andy Hart:

So everyone was having a barbecue at the weekend. Nick linker was in his uh, boiling studio

Carl Widger:

singing of a beer. Azeez, nobody would believe that wood guy. Got a little song for PSA corner. Anyway. This is from the Central Statistics Office. Yeah, the amount of money in prses at the end of 2024 was 18 point 3 billion, which was up 53.8% over 2023 which is mahus of and the reason was that they took away those limits that I've spoken about. Anyway, I think that report is really good, actually, and it's done really well. And it's from the CSO, so it's like facts and figures. Do you know the one thing that I think about this? I think this is fabulous, because most of this is from private companies, individuals, that kind of stuff. Yeah, I have bemoaned the fact that we weren't a nation of investors. I think PR says perhaps could change this dynamic, and we won't see the benefits, maybe for 1015, 2025, 30 years. But please, government, please don't take meddling with something that's clearly working, because if we become a nation of investors and we create this wealth, it just makes it better for everybody. And we'll also it's looking after ourselves. We've been so focused on looking after the multinationals. This is a little bit for the mom and pops who started their business. Just leave it alone. Let us create a little bit of family wealth, please. It's doing its thing for sure. If you create an opportunity that's fair and reasonable, this isn't unfair. This is not unreasonable. This is not tax avoidance. This is allowing people who have taken the risk all their lives to create some wealth for themselves and their families. Leave it alone. We as a nation will benefit if you leave it alone.

Andy Hart:

I'm sure they're listening. Carl, I'm sure they're listening. Well, it'd be

Nick Lincoln:

loud if they would, but I think, yeah, that's politicians, man, politicians and other people's money. It's, it's a heavy

Unknown:

surprised who's listening to this, by the way. Andy, thank

Nick Lincoln:

you for that latest PR I say corner update. Complicia, that okay, city regulators

Andy Hart:

the couple of links in the show notes, ones the times, which is a paywall, the other one is a non pay wall. So city regulators savaged by their peers. For companies compliance costs and the boss of nationwide spoke out about the red tape and compliance burdens the regulator sent nationwide that is one of our biggest lenders, biggest banks, 4519 letters, and I'm pretty sure they were letters, not emails, attachments. Nationwide was summoned, summoned. We get the wording there to 488 meetings. Bloody ridiculous. And there's been a report that's come out by the House of Lords, I believe, 141 page report basically saying how the regulators are, they're, you know, lambasting the regulators for the inundated, inundating or authorized firms with information requests. And they called they said that they were guilty of mission creep. There's a whole other load of stuff that it goes into. But, I mean, imagine getting four and a half 1000 there'd be so much duplicate information, they'd have to go online. They'd have to put in their nationwide regulated name, their nationwide regulated number, all the same, questions, again, rinse and repeat. You know, only because I get it from my tiny, little firm. I got to, you know, I dread to think what it's like for for these super large organizations. Any questions or comments on that,

Nick Lincoln:

not really aside from, I think the regulator is going to get a bit of a shoe in, in this, in this, in this episode there was, there was a

Alan Smith:

part of a talk given by a politician, I think was a conservative politician couple of weeks ago, but he just laying out, obviously, was talking politically against the current government, but he laying out a whole he laying out a whole just the kind of anti business sentiment. And I can't remember what the numbers were, but I think I shared it with you guys, just the number of regulations that do exist, the sort of number of regulators, oh, yeah, of regulated people. It's gone from, I can't remember, like one in 30,000 to one in 700 don't quote me on that so far. That. Regulators hired to look after a, you know, the ratio, it's not obviously, I guess the financial services industry has grown over the years, but on a pro rata basis, number of regulators versus number of people they're regulating has just, you know, 10x over the last few years, which is fine. We want to work in a proper, regulated environment that attracts investment and customers and clients. But my God, we're doing everything we can. It seems to to regulate ourselves to death, but there

Andy Hart:

we go. Just, just, just on that following point. Nick, do you want to talk about your point now? Because it sort of is connected.

Nick Lincoln:

Yeah, thanks. I think last week. The week before, unbeknownst to us, we all got an email from the FCA saying they're going to send out a survey. My date is the 30th of June. All the ifas that were kind of friendly with this. What's happening? Have you got this email? Yeah, all 5000 all 5000 advice firms in the UK are going to get this email where the FCA wants is going to probe deeper into our businesses and ask for yet more information. Now. So my ones the 30th of June, on the 30th of June, that's my company year end on the 30th of June, I've got my compliance audit to make sure that I'm complying with the FCA regulations. On the same day, I'm going to get this survey from them the next day. My RMA, our year end. Yeah, the actress for me, known as Gabriel, that is due, and I don't know, man, the FCA sends is sending out these mixed messages saying we want to be lighter touch. We're going to be more kind of, what's it rules based, I can't remember, whatever they're going to they're going to lay back on what the impression they're asking for. And of course, in the meantime, I'll probably get a I'll probably get a baseline resource email about my finances, because, God forbid, values division goes to the wall. It'll just be another 2007 to nine, won't it in this part of the world? So yeah, if you've got this email and you're thinking they're targeting you, they're not every poor sod is going to get these emails, and then they're gonna do targeted follow ups depending on the responses. So stick in the middle, right? Don't, don't go too fast. I go too slow.

Andy Hart:

We did see an example spreadsheet by another financial advisor who shared something that he thought is the most likely things that they're going to ask. It's a lot of detail, but if you're you know, on top of your business, on top of your numbers, on top of your MI, you've got 12 weeks to fill it in. I'm hoping me and unit can do this very quickly. If I'm tiny first,

Nick Lincoln:

we're doing an hour of getting it, you know, RM, ar, and

Andy Hart:

no grasp of their of their data. Am I got all these different

Nick Lincoln:

people. Point is a why do they need this information? They probably got a lot of it anyway, through, through our reg data duplication, they won't even look at it, you know, and still see the crooks will still be doing

Unknown:

their shit.

Nick Lincoln:

Yeah, this is

Alan Smith:

anyway Shereen and my team about this. Have you received it? Yeah, we've got it. She said that we'll do it, obviously. But she said, The frustrating thing is, we already supply a lot of this loop to the spreadsheet. We already supply. A lot of this is

Andy Hart:

in the rmar, 85% of it. 85

Unknown:

no one minds providing. But you always wonder, what happens to the data that goes into the RMR return, because if they've already got that and they're asking for it again through a different medium, it does. It's frustrating anyway. But and

Andy Hart:

then they introduced that other one that other one that was just a temporary thing during COVID that we all complied with, and then they've continued to do it. It's all multiplication. This is what Debbie Crosby is the chief executive of nationwide. You know, she said the things that they asked for extremely resource intensive. And there's no optionality with this. This is we need this by next Friday, we need this by the end of May, we need this by the end of October. It's just, remember, Carl,

Alan Smith:

what I told you years ago about compliance. You know, it's always going to come at us. And you can use it as a positive, because the good firms, like all of us, we just, we just through gritted teeth, we deliver on it. Course. We give it to them as soon as they want it, and others might struggle. You know, it's just you use it as a potential benefit. It's the only way I can get my head around it and look at as a positive thing. It's

Nick Lincoln:

without crying.

Andy Hart:

Yeah, it's well framed, but it still doesn't change the situation. Okay,

Nick Lincoln:

right? So, okay, right. Let's move on. So, Smithy, back to your well, now we've got your latest we've got

Alan Smith:

crypto corner? No, I think this is relevant to all the devices out there, the latest, you know, the kind of the emerging asset class, which would generically call me, I know that Carl's going to get excited on this crypto call, but call it, call it crypto investment, particularly around Bitcoin. It, you know, as I've said when we had a whole episode on it's a $2 trillion asset classes growing at a major pace. Looks like it's becoming more mainstream, being taken up by, you know, sovereign nations now, as well as you know, huge you know, wealth funds, etc. But and the UK has been dragging its heels somewhat, but breaking news last Friday, or the Friday before the FCA announced that they're beginning a consultation period to in theory to allow retail investors access to what they're calling crypto et ends. I didn't even know what an Etn was, yeah, but, okay, what is it? Yes, what is, what is an exchange traded note quicks that

Andy Hart:

what is similar to an ETF, but you can hold completely random stuff in it. You know, you can make you can wine and you can

Alan Smith:

add oil in it, except that you don't actually have to own the underlying asset, but that's so.

Andy Hart:

So was so anyway, yeah,

Unknown:

also, it's like a low, no, no, don't think so. I think

Nick Lincoln:

it

Unknown:

just because, again, I'm no compliance regulatory expert, but the assumption is that will get signed off and approved as being potentially viable for retail investors, right? So I see this as a couple of points, regardless of your view. Doesn't matter what your view is. There's a couple of things. One that allows your clients, potentially or future prospective clients, to go and buy it. If they say, I know, Carl, you're not interested. I quite like the idea of this, this this thing, I'm going to go and buy it, and they could end up blowing themselves up, because there's good, bad and indifferent across in that space, financially blown themselves up. So not knowing, not you know, again, just washing your hands to say, I know, I know nothing about it, not interested in it is a is a risk. But the other thing is, in the UK, as you know, we are expected. We are the three of us are independent whole of market in terms of the regulatory status, you know. So we are expected to review and analyze this. We will expect it to consider exactly the same way as we review and consider structured notes. They're not everything in theory. But in other words, you're going to have the in theory if you're going to document VCT, the reason why you don't,

Nick Lincoln:

well, we apparently are obliged to consider structured products and then obviously disregard them because they stink structured notes. Et ends, are they not in and I'm just showing ignorance here. Are they classified as pooled funds? Because, to me, they smack of individual securities, and we definitely can't touch those.

Unknown:

Don't know, but this is the point being. This is not quite individually, it's not individual, it's collectives it's poor. Well, the point, the point being here, Nick, they will be available for retail Well, assuming it's a consultation, but it's, it's a, it's a quick consultation, because it will close by July, and the chances are they will roll these things are, and that's a precursor to eventually creating ETFs. And align the likes of Black Rock and others to watch ETFs. I know for sure, and some of you on this call also do that. There's a pent up demand for access to some of these asset classes within your pension fund, your ISA and everything else, which you can't at the moment. So I've said it before, and I'll say it again. As you know, we at Capital, we ran or Dan Parkinson, which spoke about for ran a Bitcoin workshop. He's still offering them, and I think we can't ignore it. And it's absolutely fine to say, not for us, not interested. It's a lot of shows. It's wizards and clouds, whatever you however you want to describe it, but you're, we're all running out of of excuses to say it's not regulated, so don't know anything about it.

Nick Lincoln:

Yeah, I got that.

Carl Widger:

Okay, can I just make a point in that? Right? I hear you loud and clear, right? And I have clients asking us. We have clients asking us as to how we would go about doing it. So 100% there's a demand for it out there, right? What? One of the I've said this privately in our group right now, if they, if they make these into ETFs, right? That that advisors can basically go and Flog. Watch them all. Not sorry, watch some of them, the bad actors, ditch their investment philosophies overnight, because they chase the money. And I have a serious problem with that. Like, do I have a problem with the client coming and saying in my playpen, I would like to purchase some bitcoin? Can you facilitate or can you tell me how I would do that? That's fair. Yeah. No problem whatsoever. But I just think that this is going to open up a whole world of people just chasing all your pension into

Alan Smith:

and there's always a there's always a bandwagon and a theme extreme in it. Yeah, you're right.

Nick Lincoln:

I'd be, hopefully it wouldn't be. It's a massive shift to go from the total we are the totally evidence based kind of approach, where we've, like, methodically looked at investments over the last 20 years and then just but I can see, like, the act, you know, I'm not shitting on these people, but maybe they were the more active fund picking kind of ifas, I can see them kind of becoming more bandwagon. I'd be amazed if an EBI,

Carl Widger:

frankly, Nick younger folks coming through, you know, they think we're dinosaurs. They think I'm a dinosaur for sure, because some of them said it to me, right? But, you know, and they just think it should be, it's Bitcoin all the way, and that's it. And I'm like, that's, you know, on you, on you, my friend, you know what has always worked will continue to work. And okay, pens are fine. The

Andy Hart:

devil is in the detail. But I mean, the article title FCA lift span on crypto trackers in growth push, and then in the first line is poised to lift. So obviously, they're just making an assumption. We don't know exactly what crypto assets they're going to allow. I mean, the obvious one that they're going to allow is the first one they're going to allow is Bitcoin. Bitcoin needs ETM, and they're. After that. Who knows whether they're gonna stable coin or something like

Carl Widger:

that. So look, the point, the point is, this article is, if the ban isn't lifted, now, that's coming, exact driverless taxes, it's just coming. It will come. So agree, like, if you're, you know, get ready for that too. But

Andy Hart:

there is still, there is a shed load of way you can access crypto and Bitcoin assets in the in the UK, at the moment, various different platforms do. Yeah? So if you're that motivated to have exposure to it, you'd already have exposure. This is the mass market offering now, yeah, all right, gents,

Nick Lincoln:

right. We're 45 minutes, and we still got four or five points to go. So watch solar 21 yeah, I'd

Carl Widger:

fly through this. So this is this. We had a laugh about this. The the I call it a Solar Wind Fire. But you know what I mean, it was this solar investment that was going pear shaped. And there's various branches in this and this article, I do remember way back the promoters of this thing were saying, oh, stick with us, and we'll, we'll figure it out. And blah, blah, blah, well, they've just announced that certainly one part of it, or one plant that they had, which is actually in the UK, went on fire, and unfortunately, it's going to have to be sold on an insolvent basis. Now the article headline says that it's the older pension investors are going to be mostly affected. I don't know why they said that, other than that's probably just grabbing headlines and making it a little bit sensational. But the point here is, I had said at the time, these things, when they've gone pear shaped, you know, they're you're not getting your money back, or you're going to get very little back. It seems that this might be now playing out unregulated investments like this. You know, just be very wary of what you're getting into.

Nick Lincoln:

It's always a recurring theme, isn't it? It's a recurring theme. Thank you, Carl for updating us on that one. Ultra mortgage rules.

Andy Hart:

Yeah, this one is, I think, quite interesting. Obviously, debt is a huge thing for lots of people buying houses, trading up, etc. The FCA proposed a couple of changes in relation to this. Three points to this, how they want to make sorry, profound, profound. They want to make remortgaging to a new lender easier. So currently, lenders undertake a full affordability assessment when taking on a new customer. Our proposal, our proposals will allow them to do a lighter touch assessment if the mortgage offered is cheaper than what they're currently paying. So if I'm paying 1000 at the moment, I'm going to go for another lender is 900 they'll do a seamless way for me to do a remortgage, just checking my credit score and then switching me over, which will add a lot of innovation to the mortgage market. They also want to make it easier for you to reduce the amount that you totally pay back, where you can reduce your term. Currently, if you if you've got a term of 20 years left, and you say, Look, I've worked out I can pay over 18 years. They do a full assessment, full hard credit check. It's a freaking nightmare. So they're going to introduce that to basically make that lighter touch. So they're just introducing things which make common sense in a heavily regulated market. So yeah. So some good innovation coming down the line in relation to lightening up some of the mortgage rules. Lickolus

Nick Lincoln:

Nickolas has a quick anecdote around anecdote around property. I was speaking to a client this morning who's got his second property on the Isle of Wight, and they're going to bump up council tax on second properties. Is

Andy Hart:

it a massive amount, 100% or not. I don't know the ins and

Nick Lincoln:

outs, but it's more money. But he was saying, if you put your property on the market, your second property on the market, that doesn't apply, there's a massive bit of there's some games to be played there. There's some money to be made there. What a ridiculous loophole

Unknown:

in the market.

Andy Hart:

Yeah, okay,

Nick Lincoln:

stuff. You know,

Andy Hart:

half the Isle of Wight is gonna be on the market all time. It's like rock Sullivan's dream,

Nick Lincoln:

47,000 people. I think he saw properties or people on the Isle of Wight. There are 106 properties listed at more than a million quid on the Isle of Wight. On the Isle of Wight. So they're just listing and obviously putting out prices, and they'll just be listed for years

Carl Widger:

to come. There's an estate agent in the Isle of Wight. Was never a lovely website,

Nick Lincoln:

mortgage mark

Alan Smith:

and all that. That's a whole other conversation. We don't do a lot of it, but, you know, the Help to Buy scheme you only thought you

Andy Hart:

Oh, yeah, figure out. Bring it back to

Unknown:

people recently shouldn't be called Help to Buy, called help to sell, because all the developers and they built all these incredible houses. I just, I was speaking to someone the other day who was just was just looking to sell his property in, you know, you know, there's a lot of these developments down at Canary Wharf, all these, you know, fancy penthouse apartments and so on, yeah. And then we built a whole lot of new ones under this Help to Buy scheme. So all the developers pop the prices up because they were going to, buyers are going. Okay, and if you had one of the existing properties across the road, you know, you, you were, you're at at a loss. So because the builders, the people, you can't sell them nowadays, basically the whole, the whole thing, all roads lead back to this. It's not just another moment. It's just all about it seems that people in power don't seem to understand the power of incentives and look at second order effects. To do one thing, yeah, we want to help first time buyers. Good idea. Brilliant. So we're just going to do this one thing without thinking, Ah, if that happens, then this is going to happen. Then this other thing, like the Isle of Wight, estate agent, like the Help to Buy, help to sell. It's nuts.

Nick Lincoln:

Well, even, even that, Alan, I pull back on first principles, it's not the government's role to help first time buyers. Yeah, what they're doing, you know, and that's wrong, but that's just good. I'm more and I suppose, but yeah, they just have no like they they do not understand human nature. They just don't see it. It's just bizarre. They have this massive blind spot in these kind of things. Okay, well, Ultra, that's a more interesting point than I thought I could ever be on mortgage rules. Thank you very much for that studio that was genuine.

Andy Hart:

Got to tell his story. That's why he's made

Nick Lincoln:

it interesting. It was shit, and I made it better. Okay, the three of us not watch, because he just dips his toe in when he wants to. These days, rooms part time, but the three of us went to an event recently at Vanguard at the frameless. At frameless, the building's called frameless in next on Marble Arch, top of Hyde Park.

Unknown:

Yeah, your emails

Nick Lincoln:

in your in your spam folder. Get one of your show with the spam folders. BBs went for Vanguard event. Very good. Vanguard are sort of aware, um, we're developing things with Vanguard in terms of the trap proposition and stuff we can do for the TRAPPIST, and that'll emerge over the next year or so if we can get something organized. But it was Smithy. It was

Alan Smith:

great. I just find this quite interesting. How events, we've talked about events in the past, but it's like they've a lot. We've begun to up our game, or the profession in the industry. You know, we spoke last time about the advisor 3.0 which was just like kind of mind blowing in a way, and the Vanguard event, it was held as if anyone's ever been to it, obviously, as a keen art aficionado, myself, a clean collector of art held in an art gallery. And it's a very but I have actually been to that art gallery I have in the past before, and it's like, of course, I

Andy Hart:

have Jesus

Nick Lincoln:

Christ. He opened it, he opened it. He opened it. Yeah,

Alan Smith:

I've been to 11. It's a very interesting, very cool venue, isn't it? It's just this is kind of whatever you call it, 3d arts.

Unknown:

I just love the setup the venue, as you would expect from Vanguard, it was run extremely well. We all went, you know, you go into these quite funny. We all sat down the front row every time. So we sat in front row with the CEO of Vanguard, or one of the sort of top dogs of Vanguard, UK Europe, I think, who was kind of interviewing the global CEO of Vanguard.

Alan Smith:

Now he asked my question as well. Actually, whilst we're doing this, I do need to give a shout out to that UK Top Dog.

Unknown:

His name's Doug, Doug Bennett, and I met him recently, and he was and I forgot he's like, he's only young. He's really, like, 39 or something, but he's a big, proper, proper boss, serious person. And he said to me, I hope he won't mind me sharing this publicly. He does. I'm sorry, but he said that he's massive trap fan. He said, he lives, I think he lives down in Devon, and he gets a really sort of early morning train. He said, I always look forward to tuning in to trap. I thought, Oh my God, you've got these, like serious people, really top dog business people listening to our gibberish. But no, he's great a couple of times. Really good. And so the whole experience, I thought, I thought, I thought it was really well organized, really well organized, really well done. And the content, the things that I don't normally warm to, which is like, you know, in depth analysis of the market by economists. They had their global chief economist

Nick Lincoln:

there, and I thought,

Alan Smith:

because he was talking at a level that I actually understood, and I thought it was really smart and insightful. So and, of course, and the last thing I'll say is just a remote

Unknown:

I leave you guys alone. I leave you alone for one event. Global economist,

Nick Lincoln:

don't label me some good stuff. I've actually

Andy Hart:

got his book here, isn't

Alan Smith:

it isn't my to read that next time,

Nick Lincoln:

coming into I didn't take a freebie. I did not take a book on one economist at this event,

Andy Hart:

I've got two mate. You can have one. No,

Nick Lincoln:

no, no, no, you keep scribbling the other one, right?

Unknown:

The other thing that I would just say. About these conferences in general is there were, again, stately, obviously, there I had so many just kind of off the cuff conversations, you know, kind of classic run the coffee and all that bumped into people I hadn't seen in years, and a few other interesting things just spun out from this. So, as I always say, show up to conferences. Just go along. Choose, choose some. Don't go to everyone, but go to everyone, but go there with the intention of just bumping and having informal conversations with people, because you never know where it's going to, where it's going to lead to. So I thoroughly enjoyed the day and the evening. Hey, Nick,

Nick Lincoln:

yeah, it was good. It's good. Yeah. We invited this. This very nice lunch. I was sat next to the behavioral guy who, earlier on, headed in a very fluid way, jumped onto stage and explained their latest advisor, asset, nice, lovely guy from Brazil, married to a Texas chap. Interesting guy lives in Pennsylvania, near the Vanguard complex, which is sprawling there. Now. They've got so many employees and the advisor out for you know, there's a big thing with Vanguard. I think it's the for me, that's the bit I like really. It's really, again, younger advisors. Check out Vanguard. Just Google Vanguard advisor Alpha. They've got a whole library of stuff there to help explain to clients where the value add is and where it should be, in your in your in your service offering to your clients. And he said this thing about in the research, clients don't generally feel positive about their relationship with advice. They don't feel growing. They don't feel comfortable with investments where the value is with clients, with of advisors, is the advice clients just feel less anxious. Now, that might sound as being the same thing as being positive about their best, which is not quite the same thing, but that take a while. I don't you know, clients don't come out of our meetings just saying, Oh Nick, I want to hug you, and it's the best thing ever. We're giving peace of mind that we can help people just be less anxious and makes fewer silly, irrational decisions then that, to me, is the job done. And that's that's a big part of the advisor Alpha takeaway, just just

Andy Hart:

on the advisor, just on the advisor Alpha. Nick, the latest one currently, I think, came out in 2020 we did cover it in the show. They've got a new one coming out on I know he spoke about it at the event, but I don't think I can't find it online yet, but when it does launch, the 2025 one, and it's public for advisors, will have a little bit of a feature of it on the show, if that makes sense. So, yeah, I don't think the new one's out yet. Okay, cool, and just a shout out

Nick Lincoln:

to Nicola Constantina, who's our contact point at Vanguard. Thank you, Nicola. We all really enjoyed the day, and we're looking forward to working together over the coming 12 months, although your view might change of us in 12 months time. Okay, let's move on to what are we at? Jesus, we're 57 minutes. Let's move on to the meat and potatoes of this show. And this one is, we haven't done the subject before. I don't think, No, we haven't. You might know, dear TRAPPIST, you might not know. But I set up this online forum, a Google group, tiny.cc/if a forum has got about 800 members. Now, can get very noisy. Those that love it, love it. Those that can't take the emails, leave it up to you. But there was a thread doing the rounds two or three days ago, and it's about a 30 contributed long thread around compliance, support services. I'm not sure what you call them in in Ireland, Carly, or even if you have the equivalent

Unknown:

Compliance Support Services, yeah, okay.

Nick Lincoln:

And there's one called simply biz in the UK, and on the forum, they're getting a bit of a shoe in. Apparently, they're raising their costs by some 20% without even telling anybody it's just happening. And other firms in that they raised ours by 30% but if you go back to them, they'll immediately drop it down to 15% and but loads of ifas are leaving simply business, simply business, I wouldn't surprise me if it's still the biggest compliance support, certainly up there as one of the biggest in the UK, but wasn't a good look for them in this, in this IFA forum. So lots of ifas are leaving simply beers. And that got me thinking, I think based experiences we had recently where we met somebody who's looking to become an IFA, and they have tried to do it the directly authorized route, and it's really, really, really difficult, and he and, or maybe even the she, they're doing

Unknown:

it could be a network. Oh,

Nick Lincoln:

go on a problem, yeah, thank you so he and she, maybe both come on to use a network. Well, you know, right? You continue. I'll give up. Go on. You continue. Nick

Alan Smith:

Andy was interrupting carry on this story because I was there the conversation. Please carry on. Yeah. And

Nick Lincoln:

so this, this, this person is going to use a network because it's the only way they can get authorized. So it brings up this thing. Now, if, if you're with a compliant support service that you're not happy with, do you leave? Which would be the idea. I mean, I left simply biz three years ago because I just felt they were offering me a service that they weren't offering me a service in line with my business. They were offering me loads of stuff I didn't want, and they still seem to view us, me as a broker, yeah, as opposed to five. Actual plan. So I went out, I left them. I've always been directly authorized. I changed my CSS, and now I use the compliance department, who are great, very pared down, just provided with compliance. That's all I want. But that's one subject, which are the decent Compliance Support Services in the UK. I don't know. I know there's some decent brands, but I don't use them, but maybe you guys can help. But then should you consider going the network route anyway? Because there's, there's a lot of conjecture out there. The FCA wants most small IFA firms to join networks, because it's far easier for them to prod and push a network than it is to prod, you know, X number of one man band, ifas Andrew, you've got your hand with

Andy Hart:

you. Yeah, I'll just run a couple of points. I'm a current simply biz member, and I've received those emails every year, you know, just jacking up the prices with no explanation. I'm sort of just too busy elsewhere and pick your battle. So I just, you know, accept it as it were. They helped me with REG data quite a lot. So I've got, you know, support my accountant, and somebody has helped me with that, and they do an annual compliance visit where they, you know, rip up the floorboards and go through everything. So I'm sort of happy with what I'm paying them. They do nudge up every year in answer to your point, if you were setting up a new business today, it's a lot tougher than when Nick went da in 2008 Nick, sorry, and when I went da in 2017 we've heard from a lot of very experienced, very clued up, very technical advisors. It's very hard to do. I think I've heard anecdotally, again, I could be out with the numbers, about 10% of people get accepted to go directly authorized, and it's a extremely excruciating process. You fail along the journey, but they don't tell you the reasons why. You then reapply. You find another part that don't tell the reasons why. It can be quite messy, but simply bids, that article I shared that we may be able to share in the show notes, simply bids, said that out of the people, they hold their hands still to become directly authorized, that they've got a hit rate of 90% so if people are thinking about going directly authorized, then it still is a valuable option to pursue via simply biz, because obviously they've been there, done it with hundreds, maybe 1000s of firms. My final other point is I hear very good things about cats. So if I was to switch my compliance services company, or whatever you call it CSS, I'd consider to go to cats. I know loads of firms that use them. I know the founders quite well. Verve is another one that we spoke about quite a lot. And then obviously we we've got 360 which I think Alan, you're maybe part of 360 and simply biz now owned by the same company, fintel, I'm pretty sure that's correct. So they've had a bit of a roll up in that, in that space. And my final point about simply biz is, yeah, they are owned by fintell Now, which is a public company very keen on growth, so maybe fees on the rise is the direction they're heading. Who's now

Unknown:

you've taken, I've taken most of my points anyway, I think that that was that to me, that that to me, was standard stand quite important in that this is a classic model, isn't you do a roll up a FinTech who we have spoken about before. Well, you spoke about their, one of the original person that founded, I think, simply because, as when it was called dBs, who, yeah, so, Ken,

Alan Smith:

Davey, wish you well. So, Ken, long and happy life. The Yes. So fin tell doing this, roll up, find his comes, and that's what you do. You don't just buy a company. Let it sit what you do. Sit. What you do is you squeeze the juice, don't you? That's what's that's Oh, cats, but they, but they did acquire 360 who we use, and have used for many years, 360 historically, they're an independent then they sold, and they were bought by Aberdeen. Now they've been sold again to pintel.

Unknown:

It is. It's just a changing shape. And of course, the great thing about kind of free markets is that people don't like it and don't value it. They no longer pay and they give notice. And that's clearly what's happening. Looking at the email group, Nick us, quite a lot of people are exiting and looking

Nick Lincoln:

so just coming on that on your phone there, and in that email chain, there's one guy who, every six months, gives you notice to simply biz Yeah, and raise their prices with him in years, right? But

Andy Hart:

that's like, Sky, isn't it? Just

Alan Smith:

gaming the system, isn't it? It's nuts,

Unknown:

yeah? But you're you're right. We've know a few, and one in particular that I've met recently top, top, top people and firm who tried applied for direct authorization. You get interviewed by the FCA, you need to know your onions about things like senior managers, regime, really deep in the weeds kind of stuff about this. And it's quite tricky to know that. So as you say, I'm not surprised at those numbers, if 90% get rejected. So therefore, well, there's two things. One is a network, and then it's compliance. You know, I guess if you join a network, you get all that bundled in. And if you go, if you are da, you go to you generally need, like, we have some sort of compliance support services. I would. Say in my so we've just used 360 as I said for years. We're okay. We're absolutely okay. We run a pretty Shireen in particular, in the team, run a very tight ship around compliance and reporting regulatory stuff. But it's quite useful to have sort of an independent third party. What I also know, because I still have to keep up to date with all the kind of the regulatory rules and 360 provide online testing and all that stuff just in one sort of Sims. Yeah, simplify. It's just, if you have to do that yourself or create your own model, it would be, it'd be disaster. So it is absolutely useful. The one name that was new to me for the firms, because we all know I've taken loads of calls from advisors, maybe leaving bigger companies looking to set up by themselves. They've got that option. Do I go da? Do I get support from a network? If, if the latter, then who do I use? But a name that we heard recently, I think you guys were in the conversation was New Leaf, or they've never heard of them before. Yeah, so someone who'd done a lot of research, and again, you know, do your own research. I have no clue, no idea, but, you know, there's a range, obviously, of all these actual networks you join, which is, again, slightly, slightly separate from compliance support, like cats and yeah. So they're probably work worth putting on your list if you're doing some research. New Leaf, just the

Andy Hart:

other two to mention that I know quite a few advisors use them sense, and then the other one is valid path. I believe valid path. In the space of like a month, doubled their business. They were basically looking after 100 firms and 100 new firms applied. So within three months, out 200 firms under their wing, so they are growing a major clip, because da must be so hard to to do. So if I had to go da today, I may or may not pass the test, so I may end up having to go with one of those

Nick Lincoln:

works. The stat I heard was the FCA translation. I mean, that's, yeah, I know. Can you imagine roles were reversed, you know, treating customers fairly, and we said that, well, I'll come back to your email wanting money out your pension in three months time. Though, I think I might have been a bit of trouble. You mentioned 162 I left simply biz because you said he called him 160

Andy Hart:

go on. Stop interrupting, whatever. Stop interrupting.

Nick Lincoln:

I left simply biz. And I was nervous about the fact I'd be losing kind of this great big support thing. But actually, you can, if you're a one man band, you can do the RM AI by yourself. You don't need help. It's not that, once you've realized how stupid it is and when stupid bits are, you can link the stupid

Andy Hart:

bits together. Sorry. Nick, Reg data, I know it's just a Yeah, CIS,

Nick Lincoln:

I or the PFS will have all the learning modules to do your you don't need, you don't need a compliance network or client support provider to give you that you can do that on your own. And I just wanted a lean, mean compliance machine that would come in and audit me once a year and then give me updates through the year. And that's exactly what I've got with the compliance department at a fraction of the cost. Department at a fraction of the cost. So, Andrew, you're busy. You've got lots going on, you know, you've got, you're selling your software and stuff like that. So you're stasis for you with simply biz. It's not a software time

Alan Smith:

I would down the country.

Nick Lincoln:

Oh, sorry, you've changed the technology. I thought it was a software salesman that was your technology, just whatever.

Carl Widger:

I love, the little needles going in. Yeah, it's not that. It's not the same here. There are no simply business are verve, or any of those. The market here, I think, has a couple of kind of consultants who do this, but, but not absolutely tons when, when we set up, when I set out my own, I employed Evelyn Hanrahan of compliance, governance and training, and she went through the process with me, and I know she's still doing that very successfully. And and Evelyn then acted as our kind of a consultant to the business for compliance for several years, until such time as Sinead Clinton joined, and then Sinead took over as compliance manager. And what we did then was Evelyn kind of worked hand in glove, I suppose, with Sinead, and Sinead is now now head of compliance. There are, maybe, you know, if you want to one off project works, there's kind of legal firms who will do that for you. But there's there. There are no firms in Ireland like simplybiz brokers Ireland would kind of represent a large portion of the broker market here, and they would give some compliance support, but, but not like simply business. You guys are describing it. I think. Nick,

Nick Lincoln:

okay, so, but you're already Metis. Norway is quite a big organization. What about the one man in Ireland? How do they get, how do they complete? How do they get their compliance information? They just digest what the regulator throws at them and then make sure they adapt to it, because it. Here. It's just like, the rule book is like, 10,000 pages long. It's just like, no chance,

Andy Hart:

yeah. Is there a lot of solo advisors in Ireland? Carl, like, is it hazard? A guessing percentage? What would you

Carl Widger:

so you could be hitting the nail on the head here? Yes, there are way too many. I would say, how they all comply with the regulations that we comply with is hard to fathom, but they must just work a lot of hours and evenings that kind of stuff,

Unknown:

winning the pop pop pop I've

Nick Lincoln:

ever stopped broken man.

Carl Widger:

Honestly, there's a lot I could say, and I'm not going to say because I just kept myself in too much trouble. But it's

Andy Hart:

keep talking. Keep talking.

Carl Widger:

I just I saw one of the questions that we're going to address shortly, and I got myself in enough trouble with

Andy Hart:

the Google Search car. I found the compliance consultants.ie they look like they do something like this. Paula Downey, founder of compliance consultants Anyway, okay,

Carl Widger:

yeah, I know she's very well regarded. I would say my only experiences with Evelyn, and I thought she was fantastic. So compliance, governance and training, I would say, is that is my only experience. So that's all I can tell you. But I know there are, there are other consultants out there. I don't know about that first one that you called out, but I'm going to guess that that's probably a one or two man show of some discussion, which is fine,

Andy Hart:

it's a big thing here. Big thing here. Yeah, simply biz. Look after about 3000 firms in some capacity, I believe. But again, I don't know how many.

Carl Widger:

Yeah, they increase their prices by 15% and they might, like 3% of their their clients. It makes no difference. They've done the maths on this. This, oh, cool, you know, yeah. And

Andy Hart:

if a few people ring up and kick and scream, then they'll just, you know, make it. I think

Nick Lincoln:

a lot of it is, is lethargy, you know. And people just, they know, they know what they know, and they're scared to leave the embrace of their current CSS. I can't

Carl Widger:

imagine how much hassle it will be if you've outsourced this and to change your provider. But Jesus, life's way too short. I

Andy Hart:

mean, I've been with them since 2017 I had the same person looking after me until just last year. So I've had, I've had my

Unknown:

regular consultant for the first you know, I think, anyway, a lot of this as well. Yeah, price is relevant, but it's not the number one reason you choose. I think it is cultural Nick. So, as you say, if you've got a compliance company that's really all about, you know, helping a broker become compliant, how do you sell pensions and still tick the compliance boxes, versus a more consultative relationship? You know, looking at what's over the horizon. I think there are, I think Andy you, you mentioned cats, which is Mel, Mel Holman, who would know, but

Alan Smith:

clients and training, so, yeah, good firms. Some people, for example, they use, they used, God, he just didn't take financial planning, simply business and really get financial planning right. He, you know, some people would use, for example, a 360 which is kind of a big institutional type thing, but you've got big websites and training programs and stuff, but they want a bit more of a, you know, an individual or someone who's come in have a chat about, you know, the business and life so that we'll use, and obviously some people will just use cats by themselves. We haven't. We've sort of spoken with Mel and her team quite a few times, but of all the companies, you just hear general feedback, we I've always heard 100% positive feedback about them. So, you know, do your own research. We give them quite a few names in there based on our anecdotal experience and real life experience. So it, but it's a fast moving game. Actually, I think there's more and more new firms. I mean, more more start up. You know, two or three people do one of your advisors going to start my own company? Now the world is changing. The focus on full fat financial planning is becoming more and more important to a certain group of people. You no longer want to work for some of the big discretionary managers and what have you. So they need a seamless entry into the new into their own firm as possible. Da, looks to be a real challenge. So how can you do it? So hopefully we're giving some ideas,

Carl Widger:

bye bye, a buy a firm, bye bye, somebody sure might be an easier way altogether if the failure rate is 90%

Andy Hart:

just to mention them again. Verve, you know, we're huge fanboys of them. I mean, they seem to be covering everything off. So they've got their incubator where you can go in as a potential da firm. They'll hold your hand, do it once you've done that, then they've got power planning services. So they seem to be doing them some great things. And I was say to that I last week and had a good, good catch up there. I

Unknown:

never actually met her in person until that Van Gogh. It was great to meet her. She was doing a kind of panel talk as well. So we met with Kathy, and she's great. But yes, they do a lot of stuff. So that's that's another reason why you might want to engage, because they do a lot of coaching, counseling, mentoring for people, says what? It's one thing just getting you know. How are you going to grow your business? How are you going to recruit? Hi, all that good thing. So, and she said, she didn't give me the details that they are planning to launch something else, very new and exciting and innovative for the business quite soon. So, yeah, she a good should be around the show, actually, yeah, absolutely, yeah. Let's get her on the show. Kathy, if you're listening, get in touch. Kathy, okay, we better close this off. That's quite a

Nick Lincoln:

good, quite a good, if somewhat heated discussion. I think the takeaway that I took from this is that if you're with a CSS and you're not particularly happy with them, and it's not all about cost talent, it's about value. But if you think of taking the piss, push back a little bit, and if you're thinking about leaving your CSS, you can do it. And if you're a newbie, I think you're probably based on how the essay is working. Presently, you're probably going to be forced to go down the network route initially, perhaps networks certainly more respectable now than they were, say, 20, 3040, years ago, when it was all about commission overrides and all that kind of stuff, which is in the past. Although I think we might have a Trappist question that wants to bring the past back into the present. So let's move on to that section of the show. There she is at my front door, lugging the bulging sack up the drive of the TRAPPIST questions. If you want to leave a question for trap pack to answer, please do so on the pin tweet, on X or the pin decks on tweet. We're now up to questions from November last year. So we are getting through them, but there's still quite a few in the hopper. We will get to them, unless you're trying to promote web design services, as someone was recently on one of the questions for our YouTube channel. Thank you for that the chat and Bangalore that went straight into the bin. Okay, let's open up this first question here and see who it is from. This is from our friend of the show. We all know him, The Mighty Quinn, the Quinn Meister, Dave Quinn, who's on Twitter as at investwise. FP Foxtrot, Papa Karl, I think, you know, take this one right. Following Karl's comments on the Irish commission based system, I wonder how many firms in the UK would like RDR reverse now and Commissioner reintroduced. There is some pretty heated debate on LinkedIn between Irish advisors at the moment on the merits of commission based remuneration. Carl, you've never expressed any view on the commission based system. What are your views

Carl Widger:

on it? Dave is part of the ideas exchange with me, and he's a great guy, Dave, and he's very forward thinking.

Unknown:

Yeah, I know. I know, Dave, you know as well.

Carl Widger:

Yeah, so Dave, thanks, buddy. Yet there is, there is a lot of heated debate, because the the guys and gals who are after the commission want to protect that there are, there's perhaps some evidence that there's a little bit of consolidation going on in the Irish market that is gathering assets. Go, on call, go so that, so that commission can be paid on those assets, perhaps maybe over the next few years, if you, if you have a model in a country, any country, it doesn't matter where it is, whereby you pay 5% upfront commission on a transfer of a pension fund, and then you lock that pension fund in with five year exit penalties, but

Unknown:

lo and behold, the power of the dark side.

Carl Widger:

Lo and behold, after those exit penalties expire, there's a new reason to change your provider, really the client gets screwed. Yeah, okay. Story.

Nick Lincoln:

Thank you, Carl. I'll quickly leap in this. I'm sure we were, I can talk for the two of you, but disabuse me if I'm wrong, I would not want to see RDR reversed. RDR was just one of the really good regulations coming in the last 20 years

Alan Smith:

what I do, and I'm old enough to have gone through there wasn't an advisor at the time. But if you're way back, I can't remember. When it was we had commission. Disclosure was brought in before. Never mind about fees. You didn't used to have to, even you didn't used to have to tell it did so. And I remember people saying I was working at Standard Life in those days, a bit my ifas my brokers were saying, oh my god, it's the end of business if my client actually finds out what I'm going to earn, Jesus Christ, it's all over. But of course, it's not. And people, then you have to up your game. You've got to deliver value. And then fast forward to RDR, and fees effectively replace commission. And there's lots of gaming the system going on pre that, like you're talking about now Carl, if you, if you've sort of locked money into an investment bond, and then it would just, you know, a trail commissioner would carry on until you made a change to it. And

Carl Widger:

yes, so a firm in Ireland, Alan, right can, who's got, um, 20 or 30 million of assets can, what? Why do all the financial advisors I know drive Range Rovers, a client of mine. So. That to me, right? Yeah, because some of them, they're, they're, you know, needs to be turned over the UK.

Unknown:

And here a classic sale. Was the life insurance bond, five exactly five year thing. In fact, never mind 5% they used to get paid 8% certain companies paid 8% up front, got all, got all that money. And five years is we've reviewed your bond, and there's this other plan down the road that's got a few more funds. So in order for more fund options, we're going to move it take the 8% again, it was just a cycle ongoing, so most of that has now gone about to say, so yes, inevitable, there'll be winners and losers in this, but the winners will be ultimately, the customers and the profession. And guess what? We actually get really nice people reaching out to us now, because it's a profession properly in the UK and with firms like Metis and Dave's firm as well, it's just, it's just a better way to operate. You enjoy it more. And customers and clients and future prospects actually get in touch with you, as opposed to them that you say, well, all the guys I know we're driving Range Rovers. This,

Nick Lincoln:

this, this reach is absolutely Zenith Carl in the UK. And we, I mentioned this before. I've done very quickly at the turn of the century, when stakeholder pensions came in right clean, zero initial charge, no exit penalties. But life assurance actuaries, who are some of the brightest yet dimmest people in the country, thought, well, we'll pay initial commission to get some of these stakeholders. You get 6% stakeholder. You get 6% initial commission on 100 case, pension stakeholder, pension transfer 6k to the RFA the next day. Some ifas not listed the same week. Some ifas were rewriting the business with another firm getting another there was no, I mean, from, yeah, from a behavior point of view, it's kind of makes sense. I mean, what? There's, no downside, except for the share prices. Yeah,

Carl Widger:

yeah. And I just on that point, Nick, right? I've said this before, but the providers, the pension fund, providers, have so much to answer for. And I'm I have, I have a story right going on, and I'm gonna bite coming tongue for now. But no, no, I may tell it. I may tell this story, because it is not okay to be talking about, oh, Jimmy down the road has moved all his business. He's a disgrace. But then gene over here is re introducing business from another company here, and Jean is absolutely, yeah, we love her, yeah, right. But if you're doing something for the right reasons, you cannot, you can't get pissed off. You set up this model. Yeah, Central Bank, please come in and stop this. If you only stopped one thing. Say that you cannot pay commissions on pension transfers. Watch the market. Just contract like that. The people offering the best advice will survive and thrive. Dave Quinn's, in this world, the other the other folks in the ideas exchange, who are all doing financial planning. Rob downeys, you guys, you've met right? There are lots of people out there. Jane McAleese, right? Sorry, sorry, I shouldn't start naming names, because I leave people out. But yeah, there are people doing it right, and then there are people who are not central bank. Please step in and help us.

Nick Lincoln:

Wow, that was very heartfelt, very heartfelt. Okay, well, that's listen. We're now at 83 minutes and let's move on. Let's move on to culture cooling. I can find buddy culture corner. I've got it first. I've got culture corner. I've got culture corner. There we go. There

Alan Smith:

we go. Talked about technology earlier on. I have tried a facility called whisper flow. I put the link and spell spelt weirdly, whisper flow.ai, here's the thing. I'm of that generation that never learned to type. You're on a keyboard and I'm writing long things and word Docs and Google Docs and what have you, and it's always a frustration to me, and you've got this kind of spell check and all that stuff, whisper flow. I can just literally do it on your phone, but I use it on a laptop, I can just talk, and it's the accuracy is unbelievably good, free. It's free up to a certain amount of usage, and just talk. Open up your sort of microphone on your laptop, speak, and it just will speak. It will type perfectly, word for word. Have you said I found that very, very helpful, as they're all about little time savers, little hacks look useful, so check out whisper flow. Yeah, yeah, I tried it. And before we go, I've got a bonus, a bonus one, because it's hot off the press. Great, great friend of trap. Mike legasic has just published his latest book. Latest book is called The art of storytelling for financial advisors. I shared it with you guys because I as soon as it was announced at the weekend, I bought it, downloaded it, put it on my Kindle, start to read it. Haven't. Finished reading it, but already it's really good. I can tell he's kind of coached in the Nick Murray School of writing. It's very kind of, you know, poetic, nice, really nicely worded. And the whole kind of front page dedication or acknowledgements is an entire page in support of trap and names of four of us. So Mike, thank you very much for your kind acknowledgement of us. Thank you. Happy enough some help. But honestly, we all know that storytelling is such an important part of the financial advisors job as what clients engage with. It's it's stories, not spreadsheets. Learn how to do spreadsheets, but really learn how to tell the tell the best stories and engage with your clients. So everyone should rush out and buy that book from Mike legac.

Nick Lincoln:

Okay, excellent stuff. Watch

Carl Widger:

the week in charts, the I think it's a podcast, as well as a YouTube channel, Charlie belello And Peter maluke. I mentioned it before. It's just brilliant. It's absolutely brilliant. And separately, follow Charlie belello And Peter maluke on LinkedIn or Twitter or wherever you want to go. These two guys just nail it every time. And if you're of a similar mindset in terms of investment philosophies as we are here, then they'll they'll give you great material to be able to share with your own clients. And Peter maluke is one of the most success, probably the planet's most successful financial planning scale firm. Follow him. I super interesting guy, and certainly he's almost as prolific as Alan on LinkedIn with his uh posts and stuff, but, uh, it's really, really good. So follow both those guys and they will certainly enhance your research and ability to talk to clients about some of the important investment

Andy Hart:

stuff. Yeah, Charlie produces insane content. Yeah, really good stuff. Nick, your point. Nick, I I'm just

Nick Lincoln:

reading something. I haven't published it yet. It's it's you. I know that you've read it and sort of poured over it to any poor Charlie's almanac. Charlie munger's book, a compendium of his 11 speeches he gave, which has recently been updated. So I'm going through that, so when I finished it, I might report back on that.

Andy Hart:

Sorry, just about that. Nick, have you bought the original one, the big blue one, or you bought the recent, updated one, the stripe, one stripe.

Nick Lincoln:

I bought the black. I bought the blue framed or the gray.

Alan Smith:

It's actually I was giving this a gift. Yeah, Blue Book. Check out, visualized value. But yeah, it is. Every coffee table should have one. That's one book. Nick, you should have hard copy, not just Kindle.

Andy Hart:

Yeah, you look really intelligent. Nick,

Unknown:

all right, finish up.

Nick Lincoln:

Final point. Final point. One

Andy Hart:

final point for myself is an author I love, Malcolm Gladwell. He's come out with the books, uh, tipping point, outliers talking to strangers, David and Goliath. He's got a he's got a new one, called Revenge of the tipping point. Have I spoke about this before? I've got a bit of a deja vu here. Anyway, it's called Revenge of the tipping point. Over story, super spread, the rise of social engineering. It's really good. Listen to an audible. It's read by the author. Superb storytelling. This guy is world class storyteller. So it's a storyteller theme today I'm talking for in house storyteller. I think of one for now, ladies and gentlemen, over and out, I've

Nick Lincoln:

got to say the and the link to all these, uh, culture corners will be in the so called show notes, the link the map and Gladwell, yeah, book is almost as long as the book, Amazon, what you're doing that goes on. That's like a, I don't know why. Nick,

Unknown:

sorry, tiny CC, or whatever you call it,

Nick Lincoln:

slash, if a forum always be selling, I think we're done. There we go. Did trap? This episode 73 comes to a close, and another pile of trap slides down the U bend. Please do leave a review on iTunes, where or your app of choice, if it lets you. We're kind of running out of reviews. We don't care one star, we don't care five star. We lost six out of five stars. But until the next time it's adios from the Track Pack, take care of there, folks, and we'll see you on the other side. Jesus Christ.

Unknown:

That's about 400

Andy Hart:

degrees. Is this? Top of the building, yeah,

Unknown:

yeah, no, don't be ridiculous. Bye Travis. I.

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