Blog: The FSA has sealed Keydata advisers' fate

Absolutely

Agreed completely with this article albeit I am not happy about you publishing the HS list! In the end, the FSA continues as normal wielding their guns, clients get their money back from FSCS and us IFAs in the middle get totally screwed as the buck stops with us!

Posted by: mars

Unaccountable FSA

Let us not forget that this is a regulator who believes that it is not accountable to anyone. (not even Parliament!) Its no surprise to see them pull such a stunt, in order to absolve themselves of any blame. However, in February 2010, they did conduct a thorough review of Structured Products, which did Life Settlements Plans. I'm sure a Court will at some stage, call them to account for their incompetence and negligence.

Posted by: Paul Nash

Nanny Knows Best - not

This is blatant authoritariansim by the failed FSA. It is of no concern to a bunch of unaccountable bureaucrats with no market function as to what is 'toxic' or not. There is no way on earth that any such functionaries, who by definition are institutionally ignorant, can ever see the future of any product or service. Logically if the FSA now bans these products because it now considers them toxic, i.e. it was at the time as ignorant of their character as the advisers who suppllied them, the Failed FSA is as culpable as those advisers. You really could not make this stuff up. Here is the world going to Hell in a handcart on the build up of sovereign, bank and personal debt overseen by the Failed FSA and its partners in regulatory crime. They have no credibility.

Posted by: Steven Farrall

Keydata

This is the FSA’s attempt to divert attention from their catastrophic failure to regulate Keydata. Another example how the industry is judged with the benefit of hindsight and the Regulator takes no blame for anything that occurs even when it is clear the problem is entirely of their making. Why did it take the FSA four years to conclude that the Secure Income Bond and then the Defined Income Plan were not ISA qualifying? Was this the fault of IFAs? And once placed in administration we learnt that £103m had been stolen, sorry, misappropriated from the fund. Again, is this the fault of advisers? Everything the FSA does is informed by extreme prejudice and left-wing dogma. Oh, and self-interest. It’s populated by empire-building bureaucrats that get paid handsomely for turning up, and who are neither subject to the rigors of the market nor moral hazard. “Not fit for purpose” is an expression often bandied about, but in the case of the FSA it is oh so appropriate.

Posted by: Paulo

Stable Door?

While one cannot really argue against this, one wonders whether we are having regulation by hindsight? Anyone going forward who may invest in these does so at their peril, but isn’t it a different situation for those who suggested these 4, 5 and more years ago? True it will be hard to justify (but not impossible bearing in mind the amount of income on offer) putting a sizeable chunk of a clients wherewithal into these. However as we continually have examples thrust at us at what happens elsewhere, it is interesting to note that Life Settlements are big business in the US. Is the FSA saying that the US Regulators are more lax or that these products don’t work there? Bear in mind that under due diligence utilising US Life Settlements was ‘a good thing’ as the US insurers in these cases (unlike in the UK) are in the last event underwritten by the US Government. Furthermore doesn’t all this frenetic action by the Regulator at this late stage rather have a bit of a whiff about it? As I said, odd and even stranger. It will no doubt keep us all diverted for some considerable time to come and meanwhile the usual suspects will be creaming it. (Yep – the lawyers – who else?).

Posted by: Felix Godwyn

Not Fit For Purpose

For an organisation which employs some of the most highly paid staff in the industry and is supposed to be stuffed full of wise and prudent experts how could the FSA have been so irresponsible EVER to let these awful things be offered to the public in the first place? Shame on the companies which sold them but more shame on the regulator. Their senior staff should be fined 100% of their pensions and barred from ever being a director of anything ever again. Lead by example instead of acting like reckless bullies and you might earn some respect. We'll watch out for the flying pigs in the meantime.

Posted by: Michael Both

Product Ban !

Perhaps the FSA should ban Pension products . . as so many people are going to lose so much of their pension benefits . . they were promised and are going out on strike as the last means to complain.

Posted by: Ian Lees

Regulatory Success

Equitable Life Northern Rock KeyData the list goes on..............

Posted by: IFA

Me or them ...and its not going to be me

Stand up IFAs , stand up together, DO NOT TURN ON EACH OTHER, STAND UP AND FIGHT. Hector Sants and Margaret Cole et al are trying to divide and conquer. If you all lay down and take your medicine its over, but you now have a once in a lifetime opportunity for us all to stand up, take a class action and end this tyrannical , uncontrollable , unaccountable dictatorship. These people will RUIN YOUR LIVES MAKE NO DOUBT ABOUT IT, BUT FIGHT IT AND YOU JUST MIGHT SAVE YOURS AND EXPOSE THIS SCANDAL FOR WHAT IT IS. Lifemark may be saved in the nexty few weeks, but my business wont, and i havent even had a visit !!!!! US IFAS all need to get together in London and organise a class action.

Posted by: Henry Field

Regulators are the only ones Regulators protect

As far as I can see the only people really protected by regulators such as the FSA seem to be those who work for them. Invariably consumers receive compensation when things have gone wrong or fraud is committed or bad advice given, but this is nearly always after the event perhaps many years after, so the so called regulator does not really protect anyone it simply acts after a problem arises. For me "protection" means you are being protected from a problem, not after it has occured. So the only people really protected by regulation are the regulators themselves who conviently cannot be made accountable for the many many mistakes they have made, yet they judge and sentence those they regulate. An unjust state of affairs more so that we have to pay their costs but have no say in what they do, so they can just charge us what they like. We have a compensation system in place when thing do go wrong so where is the value of regulation and what have they really achieved for their vast salaries? Our legal system would have been readily available to seek justice when things go wrong and could have been used to judge compensation and miss-selling etc. so what on earth has regulation FSA style achieved. As far as I can see it is a bit like a pyramid scheme in that the more they find things to regulate the bigger and more expensive the pyramid becomes. If regulation worked surely we would see costs coming down? I am not aware they have ever decreased so does anyone know in what year the cost of regulation decreased? The FSA alone costs a staggering 1/2 £Billion a year. The effects of regulation not just FSA regulation but all forms from the Accountancy Board's FRSA17, Solvency One and the soon to be Solvency 2 tend to have a very damaging effect on investment returns as providers invariably have to sell equities to boost their capital base and so it goes on, the costs and effects are huge. How much of an effect did this have on people's investments, endowments and pensions etc? Staggers me that this is not being looked into.

Posted by: Michael Fallas