[Weekly Wrap] Hughes is becoming mobile; so are we

What an interesting week it has been. Undoubtedly the big news was the somewhat unexpected announcement that FMA boss Sean Hughes is stepping down. Also big news was the sale of Fidelity's KiwiSaver business.

Friday, July 12th 2013, 11:30AM

The Hughes decision is one that I suspect knocked the financial markets a little. From the people I have spoken to it has been a surprise and most people consider it a loss. The most outspoken group is the Ross Asset Management investors, but as noted in the comments to this story they do need to take some responsibiltiy for their own decisions rather than just blame the regulator.

It's a bit of a repeat of the finance company debacle where people who invested directly, chasing high returns, blame everyone else and are now labelled victims.

For my initial take on the news have a read of this Blog here.

There's a story in the mortgage news section of the site which really is something all advisers should wake up to. It's the one about Westpac letting its customers apply for a home loan online. There are two thoughts in my head about this. The first is banks are becoming particularly aggressive with their direct distribution. We are seeing this strongly in two areas; home loans and KiwiSaver. The feeling is that they are paying less and less attention to third party distribution. The flip side is that independent financial advisers need to further differentiate themselves and make the value of their advice even more compelling to customers. The days of brokering or running a straight transactional business are diminishing.

There is also the trend around mobile technology. It's something that challenges us daily. Some news about what we are doing is further on in the Weekly Wrap.

Fidelity's deal with KiwiSaver is also interesting. I guess part of the deal was to raise some money to pay for the TOWER life purchase. But what caught my eye was the fact that Fidelity will end up with a stake in Grosvenor. These are two companies which stand up to the banks and fiercely support the IFA market. To see them both get stronger is particularly exciting when you think about my earlier observation on banks.

There has been lots of people news including the resignation of a top guy at Kiwibank, some former Kiwi funds management executives doing well across the ditch and more. As usual check out what is happening here.

For the latest in jobs see this page and if you are recruiting you can post your job ad directly on the site using this page.

We've been trialling some new things at Good Returns recently. One is video. There is a clip of Grant McFlinn, the 2013 Mortgage Broker of the Year here which has proved to be quite popular. We have another one coming up next week with Jonathan Paine and have some other ideas. We would be interested in your feedback and any peolpe you would like to see on film. Send your feedback and thoughts using this email.

The other thing we have been working on is what is called responsive website design. What that means is you will be able to visit Good Returns on a mobile device, such as a smartphone or tablet, and the page will reformat itself so it displays cleanly. We plan to take that live some time next week.

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