[Weekly Wrap] Controversy and changes

We have just had confirmation of a rather controversial press release about who is the top fund manager. FundSource has announced that ING is its Fund Manager of the Year, even though it has frozen its two CDO funds.

Friday, October 24th 2008, 4:50PM

The big business news story of the week has been the Reserve Bank's decision to chop 100 basis points off the OCR.

In our industry though the two stories which have dominated minds are the government's deposit guarantee scheme and the on-going story around the innocuous sounding phrase 'transfer terms'.

This is in the insurance space where a couple of firms are actively trying to encourage advisers to switch books of AIG business to other carriers. Last night I attended a Share conference dinner. The message from advisers and the industry was that they were appalled companies were trying to do this. It also seems that the 'offer' is being done by visits and calls to brokers, rather than letters.

There is more on this story here.

Also in Insurance News this week we have a story about how Sovereign is encouraging mortgage brokers to sell insurance and the latest update on the health insurance market.

The government's deposit guarantee scheme is close to kicking off and it was good to see this week that the rules have been further tightened. One of the changes is that it encourages finance companies which don't have a rating to go out and get one. The talk we hear on the street is that investors are flocking to finance companies to lock in some good rates.

PIMCO have been in the country this week talking about international fixed interest markets. It says concerted government efforts to support leading banks and institutions around the world have created value in the debt of some of the firms.

Meanwhile various investment analysts are now talking about the opportunities which equity markets present to investors and advisers.

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