A large part of the Financial Conduct Authority’s ongoing work is taking a ‘broad brush’ approach, according to Marlene Outrim, founder and managing director at Uniq Family Wealth.
The FCA currently has a number of consultations in place, alongside its new consumer duty, and speaking to FTAdviser, Outrim explained that the regulator is having to take an umbrella approach.
“A lot of what the FCA is doing is very much with a broad brush and doesn't apply necessarily to everybody but they have got to do that because they can't single particular companies out,” she said.
“There are some companies that may need to improve their services and ensure that they are giving the right kind of service to their clients. We have always been very client centric and that is why our business has been so successful because we do give this very personal service.
“We have an older client clientele [so] we are very attuned to vulnerable clients as well and mindful of how we deal with them, how we approach them and how we adapt our systems and services.”
She explained that firms will need to look at their practices and processes in order to prepare for the regulator’s upcoming consumer duty and other regulations.
“If you're doing things conveyor belt style, everybody gets the same letter with the same wording, regardless of the sort of client that they are, then they're going to have to reappraise some of that,” she said.
Earlier this month, the industry called for certainty and more time to implement the FCA’s consumer duty, calling the proposed time frame of nine months insufficient.
In response to the second FCA consultation on the consumer duty, which closed last month (February 15), trade association Pimfa, alongside providers in the industry, urged the regulator to give firms more time to fully understand and implement the wide-ranging proposals.
Pimfa argued that while the FCA’s updated proposals carry more clarity for firms, there is still significant scope for subjectivity within them.
It said the proposed implementation period of nine months is insufficient and does not reflect the importance the FCA has itself placed on the duty’s wider impact on financial services.
Speaking on this, Outrim said the timeline required depends on what sort of proposition each firm has and how it functions.
“If it means you have got to do a wholesale review of everything you send out and everything you do on behalf of clients, then maybe nine months is not going to be long enough,” she said.
“I don't think that we [as a firm] have got to do that much. We've got to do a few tweaks here and there and I think there are very many financial planners who provide a similar sort of service who won't have to do that.”
The advice gap
Like many advice firms, Uniq Family Wealth is a firm which requires clients to have a minimum of £100,000, including pensions, before it advises them.
Discussing the impact of this on the advice gap, Outrim said it is a difficulty for small firms, such as her own, to tackle this.
“We do a small amount of pro bono work and we have looked at providing a sort of cut down service on a cheaper scale, it'll meet a few people, but I don't think it will meet the advice gap as it should.
“I think there has got to be some sort of government intervention and funding for that to happen.”
She said while she wasn’t sure of exactly what that should be, it was needed.
Meanwhile, she also discussed the M&A market, an area in the past few years that has seen a lot of movement.
She said: “There are still a number of IFAs who are at or approaching the retirement age, so I can't see the consolidation of the industry stopping anytime soon. I'm not very keen on it. I think small boutique IFAs and planners have a lot to offer, do a pretty good job and are cost effective.
“There comes a time when an owner has to retire or must hand over but there are other ways without selling out and it's just really educating people and getting them to understand that there are other ways to sell to a consolidator rather than give up everything that you've worked for over the years.”
Outrim said her concern with consolidation was the topic of loyalty towards clients.
“My clients have been extremely loyal to me over the years and if I decided to retire, I wouldn't want to hand it to somebody who didn't have the same respect and approach to them as we've always had. I would just feel I was being disloyal to them, just handing them over to sort of a nameless body that was just more interested in their funds under management.”
She explained that management buyouts and employee ownership trusts are an alternative and something firms should be thinking about from the outset so they can structure their business accordingly.
“That means you get the right people in the right jobs so that they can take over at the right time.”
A four-day working week
Since January, Uniq Family Wealth has adopted a four-day working week.
Outrim said when the first lockdown came, she was the only one working in the office and when they all came back, the firm decided that each person would work a day from home.
“I canvassed the views of the team, some people said they liked working from home and some people said they couldn't wait to get back to the office. But when they all eventually did come back, they all said they much preferred being in the office.
“They liked the camaraderie, they liked learning from each other, and listening to other people speaking on the phone, sharing ideas.”
This made Outrim begin questioning the way of work and at the same time, one of the firm’s clients ran wellbeing coaching sessions which she decided to go ahead with.
“I find it difficult because I like team collaboration,” she said. “I find it difficult to have people out of the office because in my head, I think they're not there.
“I know they're working from home but that is just me because I just like to be able to go across the room and speak to somebody and discuss the case.”
The team then began a 12 week programme going out every Monday afternoon for an hour and a half to a National Park nearby.
“We did some meditations and mindfulness and the coach facilitated bringing new skills that we could learn and we were able to share with one another if we wanted to.
“People learnt a lot from that. We've got a lot of ladies with young children and a lot of them saying they were not spending enough time on themselves. They spent lots of time on their families and doing things for others but not thinking about themselves.”
Outrim said that is what got her thinking about this and she did some research and found out how a four-day working week is more productive and effective.
She put it to the team at Uniq for a discussion and offered them the option of a four-day week.
“We did this presentation and at the end of the day, they decided that they'd like to do the four day week,” she said.
“They all get paid the same money, they don't work any extra hours. There can be no heroes except for me so that means they can't work extra and come in on other days. We all have to take the same day off for it to work. So far, it has worked quite well even though we are very busy and we need more staff. It means some people have found the pressure quite hard but we've now got the new staff on board and they're finding it easier, but all have said they've had to reappraise their work and organise it better.”
Uniq’s weekend begins on a Friday and Outrim said this has been superb for those people with children as it gives them time to themselves.
“If you think about the weekend, they've normally got the children so this way, they can go and have more time for themselves.”
Outrim said the firm is monitoring the workload and there are KPIs with time limits on some aspects.
"[However] there is nothing really that we do that calls for an emergency. Even if clients want to withdraw funds, they don't want them the next day and they can't have them the next day anyway, because we've got to sell the funds. So a lot of my clients email me especially at the weekend, and I never replied to them, because I don't want them to think I'm working.
"So if we get an email on a Friday question, withdrawal of a fund, there's no way it's going to be actioned until Monday anyway because there's a cutoff at the trading time. I think it depends on how you run your business, whether you've got really good processes in place, whether everybody knows what they're doing. We've gotten an operations manager and the team work together."
sonia.rach@ft.com
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