News

The head of the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has called for Woodford Equity Fund to be suspended and waive the management fees they charge investors.

This comes after MP Nicky Morgan remarked that Mr Woodford had reportedly been taking £100,000 per day.

Following Brexit concerns, many car manufacturers had factory shutdowns planned in the UK to cope with the disruptions following 29th March. The effects of this have been seen through a drastic fall in car production in April.

Though Brexit has been delayed, factories were still closed shutdown, resulting in an astounding 44.5% drop in car production, according to the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT).

As the UK continues facing economic uncertainty, with Brexit causing chaos, it has been claimed that people have been forced to turn to second charge mortgages.

Thistle Finance, specialist packager, remarked that they have seen a 12% year-on-year increase in the fourth quarter of 2018 in second charge mortgage activity.

Consumers have been warned by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) about turning to crypto assets, without understanding what the product is and what is being purchased, such as Bitcoin and Ether, in attempts to “get rich quick”.

Research published by the FCA reported that many consumers are influenced by friends and social media into believing crypto assets as being a “fast-track to easy wealth”.

Following a thematic review of non-advised annuity sales, Standard Life Assurance has been referred to the Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA) enforcement division.

Phoenix Group acquired Standard Life Assurance in August last year, which the FCA has taken into consideration in their review, to look at past annuity sales practices and question whether non-advised customers had missed out on an enhanced annuity.

House prices in Britain in May fell by 0.2% from April to its lowest growth rate in three months, as the result of a subdued market, a report by Nationwide shows.

Compared to the previous year, house prices had risen by 0.6% but was still slower than the 0.9% rise in April.

Standard Life Aberdeen (SLA) has won the legal battle against Lloyds, stopping them from cancelling a £100 billion investment management contract early. This could cost Lloyds bank hundreds of millions of pounds in extra fees.

Lloyds had argued that the £11 billion merger of Standard Life and Aberdeen Asset Management, to form SLA in 2017 allowed for them to end Aberdeen’s 2014 contract to manage a large proportion of its pension assets, because it considered Standard Life as their competition.

Carphone Warehouse has been fined more than £29 million by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), for mis-selling insurance.

The UK’s financial regulator stated that the firm failed to train their staff on how to properly advise customers buying their ‘Geek Squad’ mobile phone insurance, after being tipped off by a whistle blower.

BMW has warned, if there is no deal achieved in the departure of the country from the European Union (EU), it could move the production of its engines and their Mini model out of Britain.

The UK is due to leave the EU on March 29, however, after the agreement between Brussels and London was rejected by British lawmakers, the possibility of a chaotic exit could hit trade.