Like some others, I was not so jubilant in waving goodbye to 2021, as we anticipated yet another round of unpleasant surprises hitting us smack in the kisser.
Within a couple of months it was all too clear that 2022 was never going to be a good year for anyone, least of all the supremely brave people in war-torn Ukraine and those brave people in Russia who have tried to stand up against their own government's aggressive warmongering policies.
As the gas supplies cut off, once again Europe started talking about relying on coal - arguably the dirtiest of dirty energy - instead of that bright green hope of sustainable energy that Cop 26 in November 2021 had encouraged us to think about.
China retained a hardline anti-Covid policy that not only stymied growth in the country but also in the world. Its threatening actions to Taiwan have not helped matters.
It feels like the organisations are heading for a bitter divorce, just as advisers need their complete support. Now we have issues around Serbia and the Kosovo border which is more than the usual "argy bargy", according to colleagues on the Financial Times.
It does not seem that we are ending 2022 on a positive note as we head into 2023. Indeed, the prognosis is not great for the UK financially, with questions over the effects of higher energy prices and high inflation on household finances.
Even if the round of bank base rate hikes are expected to end, rather than continue, it still means misery for many households facing higher monthly mortgage repayments.
Financial resilience, as the head of insurer Guardian has warned, has "been pushed to its limit".
And just when advisers are hoping to pull together to help a rising cohort of concerned Britons make their money stretch further and protect their wealth, the very industry around seems to be on a collision course.
With the Chartered Insurance Institute and the Personal Finance Society arguing in public, it feels like the organisations are heading for a bitter divorce, just as advisers need their complete support.
This task is not finished. It never finishes.Meanwhile, the regulations that the FCA spent months and years implementing, such as the 10 per cent drop rule under Mifid II, and the key information documents under Priips, are going to be unravelled during 2023.
We will see new, British-made regulations having to be drafted by a government which has already committed to shedding European rules and bringing in their own.
Perhaps they'll have their own blue covers.
But whether this work will continue to be done by the FCA or a new-look regulator is still a question being asked in the halls of Whitehall. Maybe that's something we will get more clarity in 2023.
Very bad things
Regular readers will remember that I wrote a list of Very Bad Things in 2022.
I'm not going to do one for 2023 as the only certainty about predictions is that you'll be right some of the time and wrong the rest of the time, and it's just sheer dumb luck if you're right.
But one thing that will remain is financial vulnerability - and this needs to be addressed. Tax is not being made digital fast enough to help some; but while everyone shifts to digital, there are millions of people being left behind.
After my op-ed, a reader (Ms D) said: "Please remind people that some of us still use 'archaic' means of communication."
Bank branches are still being closed at a time when many people - particularly the elderly - prefer to go in and talk with someone.
The financial services industry risks forgetting the reason it exists.Heck, even I booked an in-person meeting with a bank staffer (a very excellent one, too, Vanessa Lineker, senior personal banker at Barclays in Wallington).
In fact, she's busted quite a few frauds and protected her clients after having meetings with them and sensing something was not quite right. You can't get that from AI.
And in all this rush to rip up old regulations, internal spatting, ploughing ahead with digitisation while forgetting vulnerabilities, the financial services industry risks forgetting the reason it exists.
No, not to make money from the end user.
To help the end user. This is what the vast majority of financial advisers do every day.
To help educate, inform, guide and advice Britons through whatever 2023 might bring, so they can afford to pay their heating bills and their insurance premiums.
To help them put money aside for the future, tax-effectively, so that future generations can get onto that housing ladder or get through university.
This task is not finished. It never finishes. You simply pass the flaming torch from one to the next, driving forward to reach those in need.
So this is not an op-ed predicting what might happen in 2023.
It's a challenge.
