[Weekly Wrap] Good news for the PIE recipe

The biggest story this week, I think, is the one about the government's stance on cash PIEs. There have been fears since the government didn't design the PIE regime with cash and income funds in mind, that it would change the rules.

Friday, May 30th 2008, 4:16PM

At Good Returns we have heard plenty of stories from managers that have held off making cash, or income PIEs, because of this uncertainty.
However, as exclusively reported on Good Returns, some clarity prevails. Expect to see more of these types of funds soon.

Another positive story is that the so-called G4 group of adviser associations look like working together formally. It seems they are getting over suspicions about each other and actually, as one said, "We have actually found out we all get on with each other.
We don't need to be frightened of each other (now)."

This is a huge step forward as there is a view the fighting between associations is one of the reasons the government dumped the co-regulatory model.

In this week's Insurance News we have a bit of a regulatory theme. During the week the government outlined new rules for the regulation of life insurance companies. Also this week we have the first in a series of articles from Strategy Financial's Graeme Lindsay.

Thanks for the bill, but what's it for?
It seems the financial services industry got a bill it wasn't expecting in the Budget. As Good Returns reported the government is coughing up $9 million for the regulation of the advisory sector and is expecting the industry to pay an additional $4 million. [more]

Lots of appointments this week. Who knew that the IFA's new independent director is none other than Jane Diplock's husband?! Sticking with the IFA it has dumped its colleges and is now calling them Special Interest Groups – plus it is adding some new SIGs. Find out who is chairing what here. Our other appointment is Asteron appointing a professional development manager.

Finance companies continue to provide plenty of copy at the moment. While Belgrave fell over this week, the bigger stories were the state of Capital + Merchant's books. This is looking like the worst of all the collapses with investors looking at getting less than 10c in the dollar back. This can't be good news for Vestar which had $53 million invested with the company as at February 15.

Our other finance company story is much more positive and is a report from the SiFA conference, where St Laurence and Strategic presented their thoughts on the market with comments also from Perpetual Trust.

The home loan market is still active with some of the recent cuts to fixed rates being reversed. A piece worth looking at is our comparison of rates for big banks versus small banks and non-bank lenders.

Also there is news that General Electric is considering selling or changing the model of its franchised Wizard Home Loan operation in New Zealand. We have more on that here and some comment here.