Cold-callers are a bane of modern life so suggestions that they should be banned are bound to strike a chord with many.
The Pensions Advisory Service and Hargreaves Lansdown are among those supporting a ban on cold-calling or emailing for investment or pensions.
The difficulties come as soon as we consider how such a ban could be regulated and operated.
You would like to think that no reputable company would instigate contact with a cold-call or email. So that leaves the disreputable ones. While a ban could operate on companies operating within Britain, the problem is that many of these crooks are based overseas.
Of course, calls could be blocked once numbers were identified, but that would demand considerable investment from telecoms companies.
Even within the UK much of the contact comes from those operating outside the law. Are they going to stop cold-calling because the law tells them not to do it? Much of this comes back to one fact.
Fraud against individuals is still perceived by some almost as a victimless crime.And while government agencies and industry are happy to dole out self-help advice, enforcement is woefully rare.
If you inadvertently drop a sweet wrapper you may well get a tap on the shoulder and a fine from the community plod.
But turn up at an elderly person’s house on a dispatch bike and ride off with a chunk of their savings and you can feel relatively safe that the thousands of surveillance cameras around our towns will not be turned to track you down.
If someone diverts money from your savings account, your bank is as likely to cite data protection to prevent the culprit being identified as it is to offer any meaningful help.
Faced with increasingly sophisticated and malevolent scammers and fraudsters, the government has chosen to look in the other direction.
This lackadaisical approach has been reflected across much of the financial, telecoms and postal industries.
Legislation and regulation have concentrated on money laundering, at times creating difficulties for individuals who wish to gain access to their money.
But at the same time third parties seem able to plunder accounts with ridiculous ease.
So by all means make cold-calling and emailing illegal. But the real issue is enforcement of the laws that already exist and a willingness by banks to side with their customers rather than protecting the anonymity of criminals.
FCA moving slowly over drawdown and annuities
A YouGov survey commissioned by Retirement Advantage suggests many pre-retirees think they could take 7 per cent a year from a £100,000 pension and not run out of money. This will no doubt have many of you reaching for your I Love Annuities songsheet.
After all, Morningstar earlier this year published a paper suggesting that 2.5 per cent should be the new safe withdrawal rate.That would give £25,000 of the maximum allowed £1m pot, which is hardly a king’s ransom.
But I am afraid the Financial Conduct Authority’s thematic review of annuity sales practices provides little solace for those harking back to the bleak old days. This carried evidence of firms providing little or no information about enhanced annuities during phone conversations, including the relevance of being a smoker or overweight.
Average customers may have lost £120 to £240 income a year.
The FCA, which moves with all the speed of a rampaging tortoise, is now asking some firms to conduct a formal review of past sales – a full eight years after its first review. Bearing in mind that those due most recompense will have had the shortest life expectancies, it is reasonable to conclude that many have died waiting.
A mortgage and a loaf of bread, please
Sainsbury’s Bank is to re-enter the mortgage market next year after a 12-year absence. What will make these loans special? Well the bank is “designing a range of mortgage products especially for the Sainsbury’s customer”, according to its chief executive, Peter Griffiths.
A recent analysis suggests that Sainsbury’s shoppers tend to be young, well-educated, cosmopolitan, liberal empty-nesters. What is more they have levels of disposable income.
According to Verdict Research it has the second highest proportion of shoppers from the professional classes (Waitrose is, of course, first). In other words the ideal people for a Sainsbury’s Bank’s mortgage proposition.
What of the opposition? Well, I am guessing Aldi and Lidl would go for the more basic mortgage customer and Tesco for families with two children building homes in towns where the locals did not want them.
And Waitrose? It would not sully its hands with banking, silly.
