Hi

One of the themes this year will be lots of people changes in the financial services industry. Already we are starting to see this, with the appointment yesterday of a new head of funds management at ING.

The other thing I've noted this week is how many people I have contacted who have left firms, a number of these appear to be retrenchments as companies cut back on costs. (There's also still a heap of people on holiday - lucky souls).

Whether this will flow through to the advisory sector is something we will watch with interest. There are predictions that up to one in five financial advisory businesses could see their value halved by December this year compared to the same month in 2007.

This is in a new paper published by the ING-associated Strategi group.

Good Returns keeps track of changes in its People page. You can see what is happening here and we expect to run news on quite a few more appointments next week.

More questions to ponder about credit funds While ING is no doubt unhappy that the status of its credit funds have hit the headlines, I would have to say that it has been the sleeping dog of the industry all year. [more]

News is still a little quiet at present, with the exception of economic events which has made the home loan sector active. Good Returns tracks all mortgage rates here.

During the week we have seen some significant cuts from banks and some different pricing strategies emerging. For instance Kiwibank took a market leading position on floating rates yesterday, while BNZ brought its longer-term fixed rates below the 7% mark.

A driver of this is the expectation the Reserve Bank will cut its OCR 100 points on January 29 and more cuts will follow.

This has also seen a fall in some deposit rates during the week. It is becoming clear that many of the term rates on offer aren't going to give investors a positive, real return with inflation at its current level.

What sort of changes the government will impose on the financial services industry is a little unknown. I suspect they will hold back on some changes and one of these is the proposed insurance tax bill. This bill is expected to have a huge impact on the sector and bring about many changes.

As we report here the government may delay implementation of insurance tax changes. Submissions on the Tax (International Taxation, Life Insurance and Remedial Matters) Bill closed this week and there is talk this far-reaching bill could be delayed.

Also in Insurance News we have this year's first opinion piece from Russell Hutchinson, live now.

Yes we can...
If you want Mr. Sensitive - talk to an insurance broker. In this wonderful world of acceptance and tolerance, the very words we use to describe difference are frowned upon. [Read On]

Have a great weekend.

www.goodreturns.co.nz

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