Predictions and resolutions are as integral to New Year’s Eve celebrations as stockings, mince pies and family arguments are to Christmas.
A quick look at the manifold email subject lines greeting journalists heading back into the office bears testimony to this. News pages and social media are littered with such prophecies and pledges.
Advisers have no doubt seen the warnings over climate change becoming a necessary part of long-term investment strategies for workplace pensions, as wellas 2020 apparently shaping up to be a difficult yearfor platforms (where have we heard this particularoracle before?).
There have been suggestions of a global slowdown (again, nothing new under the sun) and a hopeful sentiment that 2020 may be the year that defined benefit pension transfers finally die down and scammers are left trying to find another bandwagon to attach themselves to.
Then there is Brexit. And what can be said of that event that has not been said before?
But what of adviser companies? What does 2020 have in store for your business? Perhaps some of you already have a good idea – growth, or a profit target or new offices. Maybe you have plans to branch out into new areas, or to forge joint partnerships with other local professionals, such as lawyers or accountants, to help take your business to another level.
For some of you, perhaps, the future might look less certain, either thanks to personnel change or simply a fear that the bills coming in from the regulatory bodies and from personal indemnity insurance providers may prove to be too rich for your company’s appetite.
Hopefully the future looks bright for all of you, potential hurdles notwithstanding, and Financial Adviser certainly wishes its readers all the best as we head into the new year.
Simoney Kyriakou is editor of Financial Adviser
