By contrast, the final full week of October felt distinctly quiet.
The FCA was making headlines again, as were the Waspi women - this time for the right reasons - while True Potential's Daniel Harrison ruffled a few feathers with the claim that some financial advisers may be charging their clients more than they ought to...
1) FCA hints at "radically different" future
The financial watchdog's recently-appointed chief executive Andrew Bailey pulled no punches at the launch of a paper on the FCA's "mission" this week.
He said a "radically different" approach was needed to the regulation of financial services to move it away from the "sorry history" of mis-selling scandals, financial crises, and rate rigging.
“The future needs to be radically different from the past. We owe this to the public who are the consumers of financial services,” he said.
The consultation paper included questions on protecting consumers, such as what is the right level of consumer protection in an environment where they are increasingly expected to take responsibility for their own financial decisions, and how the FCA should balance the responsibilities of firms and consumers.
It also asked whether the FCA should prioritise the protection of vulnerable consumers, and if so how.
2) Next financial crash, here we come!
On the subject of regulation, a report released this week by think tank New City Agenda made for uncomfortable reading for the UK's financial regulators.
It accused the financial services industry of being stuck in a “regulatory spin cycle” and urged regulators to consider systemic reform, rather than simply making stricter regulations to protect the existing system.
The authors of the report, entitled "Cultural change in the FCA, PRA and Bank of England", said in the wake of crises, politicians tend to "respond to public outrage by introducing new legislation and more detailed regulation".
"However this new regulation is progressively watered down, not sufficiently enforced or repealed. This lays the foundations for the next crisis.”
The report singled out the FCA as having "a more fragmented approach” than other regulators.
Referring to recent changes at the FCA, the report said: "It made changes to hiring, training and remuneration systems but was not clear on what it was trying to achieve or how progress should be measured.”
3) Advisers may be ripping off their clients, claims True Potential
One of our most read stories of the week was the claim, from True Potential senior partner Daniel Harrison, that financial advisers are not such fantastic value as they may like to think.
Mr Harrison said: "As a rule of thumb advice in the market always seems to add up to about 2 per cent.
“I don’t mind that too much if it is fair, but I don’t see it being particularly fair all the time."
He claimed some advisers put clients into low cost options, and then round that figure up to 2 per cent.
“So you can find an adviser charging more than the cost of the fund and platform, and this is where you get into the muddy waters of good value.
“The adviser may say they are worth 150 basis points of ongoing fee but they might not be using technology or processes efficiently.”
True Potential is one of several firms working with the FCA's advice unit on a robo-advice proposition which could help fill the advice gap with lower cost options.
4) Pension freedoms may spell more trouble than we thought...
This week saw a number of figures suggesting the transition to pension freedoms may not be the smooth, scandal-free ride former-chancellor George Osborne might have hoped.
Chief among these were figures that showed fraud losses as a result of pension freedoms were 25 per cent higher than they had initially expected.
Earlier this month, City of London Police figures showed in the six months following the introduction of pension freedoms in April last year, the amount of money reported stolen through pension scams almost doubled, from £5.4m in the same period in 2014 to £10.6m in 2015.
But updated figures obtained by AJ Bell revealed the figure had been revised up to £13.3m, representing a 25 per cent increase on the original estimate.
5) Forget that military-style coup - Waspi is back on track
It's been a turbulent few months for the Women Against State Pension Inequality, or Waspi, campaign. Back in August, the campaign founders split into two factions after an acrimonious dispute over what exactly they were fighting to achieve.
But this week, the campaign (or at least one faction of the campaign) had some good news to announce: it had crowdfunded almost £77,000 to go towards legal fees.
The campaign intends to use that money to fight the government's changes to the state pension age for women - changes that it claims were poorly communicated, and have left many women born in the 1950s in dire financial straits.
Pat Tarttelin, a member of the Waspi interim management group, said: “We never imagined people would step up so quickly to support our cause. It’s a clear signal that the time has come for the government to recognise this injustice and realise Waspi means business.”
james.fernyhough@ft.com
