Lloyds targets bancassurance as RDR creates 'advice gap'

Game Over

The vote of confidence. When a few weeks ago I am sure that SW was not core to the business! Rather like the football vote of confidence in the manager. So lots of money to be earned building advice at SW up before they close it.

Posted by: Simon Booth

Nothing new

Banks have been making statements like this for as long as I can remember and they never make any real headway. They only ever got serious market share in one type of business - PPI and they know where that got them. Why do they never learn and just stick to their knitting.

Posted by: Darrell Monteith

Lloyds bancassurance

This is what RDR was all about. Getting the banks a larger share of the market just like their European counterparts. Lloyds is even now being run by a European with plenty of experience of how to maximise profit from the bancassurance racket. Santander from where he came I believe is the bank offering the worst banking service to the public. It will have taken then about 40 years to acheive but by getting their placemen into the FSA and inventing RDR it is going to happen. If our politicians had any wisdom or were not in the pay of the banks they would see that handing over a larger share of the insurance, assurance and investment market to the same organisations that has the highest number and percentage of complaints to the FOS,have been ripping off the public on PPI,life assurance, pensions and investments for years is not a very clever thing to do as far as consumer protection is concerned. Sadly consumers don't really matter to them. An earlier blogger commented that the banks had their fingers burnt over PPI. He is wrong. The compensation they are now paying is only a fraction of the profits they made from it over the years so why should they learn anything from it other than to try something like it again but find a way not to get found out but before you are make sure the profits you make are large enough to be able to pay a little fine or compensation. Oh and also when you are found out summon the lawyers, delay paying compensation for as long as you can then go to court.

Posted by: John Smyth

Same old story

So Mr. Horta-Osório makes a commitment to Scottish Widows "both from an intermediary and bancassurance point of view". Well I have always wondered why any IFA would use SWF anyway. It is a fact of business that we need to differentiate ourselves – so what is the point stocking a product that can be bought through any old high street bucket shop? If they had a ‘must have’ then one would have to consider, but they patently don’t have that. What they do have can be sourced equally well if not better from a plethora of suppliers who aren’t found in every local bank. Anyway it would seem that we are in for the same old banking nonsense, pile it high, sell it dear and build in a 15% compensation margin at the outset.

Posted by: Harry Katz

The next mega mis-selling saga

One can only presume [hope] that very loud alarm bels are sounding down Canary way, especially in light of the admissions by Sants and Coles this week, that banks and other mass distributors have been mis-selling on a wide scale and learned nothing from the past. As John above has identified, given the way RDR morphed from something generally good to the orc it has become one can only now believe that this was always the intended outcome. The other banks I'm sure will be making similar pronouncements in due course.

Posted by: Duncan Carter

Sounds like a buy signal for Lloyds Bank shares...

...mind you, I recall in 1987 when Lloyds TSB (TSB Bank as it was then), piled into buying estate agency chains like there was no tomorrow, all at top of the market prices. It all ended in tears of course with the chains being sold back to the incumbent management within a few years at 10% of the original purchase price. Banks make a lot of strategic errors every decade, but whilst there are indulgent governments around to bail them out with taxpayers' money, then there is no incentive to take the long view, leaving them free to take on high risk strategies with little fear of the consequences.

Posted by: Richard D

What it's really about

John Smyth's excellent post should be read and absorbed by every IFA - while there are still some IFAs in the market. Because not long after RDR, they will be difficult to find. When regulators are given this power to create an entirely different market the end result (or should I say intermim result, because it will continually evolve?)will surely be that there are four or five massive European financial supermarkets that hold the client for life for all financial needs. There will be little competition between them - they will agree to carve up the market. Finding an IFA will be like looking for gnatshit in pepper...

Posted by: Ken Durkin

Lloyds targets bancassuarance

I agree with Ken Durkin. It would appear that now the mask is slpping on RDR we are seeing the true nature of the beast. I am studying for level 4 and wondering what is the point. I have been an IFA for quite a number of years but am becoming slowly disillusioned with it all. Can I put a genuine question to my fellow IFA's. Will we exist post RDR ?

Posted by: disillusioned

Lloyds bancassurance

to: Duncan Carter Sorry Duncan but your presumption(Hope)of alarm bells ringing will never happen in Canary Wharf. This is what the FSA has been wanting to acheive for years. Don't forget Sants is a banker and most of their decision makers are or were. He will get another huge bonuse directly or indirectly for finalising the master plan of the banks and insurance companies. Wait until you see what they will be able to get away with on "Simplified Advice".

Posted by: John Smyth

Am I really being cynical

Has anybody got a suspician about where Mr. Sants and the other hierachy in Canary Wharfe will be looking for their next cushy positions when they leave the new regulator and settle into their comfortable semi retirements? I may be being too cynical, or maybe not?

Posted by: Cynical Me

Here comes the FCA

@John, thanks for your follow up, there was more an element of irony in my comment I have to admit. I'm sure however that it will all be different when the FCA take over the reigns. In the meantime we're advising clients who bank with Lloyds to move on to electronic banking and not go near a branch - in there be dragons!

Posted by: Duncan Carter