Birmingham Regional Conference 3 2022

There is no doubt that the macro environment has become increasingly challenging, with inflation proving more persistent than originally anticipated, interest rates rising, a global energy crisis, and deteriorating consumer sentiment. Against this market backdrop, we believe it is prudent to invest in Quality companies with durable earnings and dividend growth outlooks, supported by very strong balance sheets, with limited dependence on the economic cycle. These market-leading companies should deliver an attractive, resilient and sustainable long-term return profile, with less of the cyclical/recovery risk inherent in many value strategies and less of the inflation and valuation risk inherent in many growth strategies, providing greater certainty in an uncertain world.

Learning Objectives:

• What defines a Quality company
• Understand difference between Quality and Growth
• Understand how Quality performs in different market environments
• Understand the importance of a Quality company’s ability to self-fund its future growth in an era of persistent Inflation and rising Interest Rates
• How Quality can be used within a portfolio to create stability and a core steady growth engine – on both a global and geographical basis

In this session we will set out to demonstrate the impact of the loss of ability to fund a financial plan. Reflecting on the FCA’s New consumer duty we will be asking the questions about what it means and how advisers can work with it to deliver better client outcomes. By creating an awareness of how an affordable protection solution can support the cash flow modelling process, advisers can ensure that their client’s future hopes, dreams and aspirations stay on track during those difficult times when life throws an unanticipated a curve ball in their direction.

• Identify opportunities to introduce and review protection needs at different life stages with clients
• Consider how to use a cashflow model to best engage your clients to demonstrate how protection could lead to better client out comes
• Demonstrate how these ideas can be effective at every stage of the lifetime of advice from the accumulation of wealth through to decumulation stage

7IM’s presentation will consider what, if anything, in the retirement landscape has changed since before the pandemic. Are the same factors that drove client solutions still applicable, or has the World changed so much that a new lens needs to be used to plan for those clients approaching, and in retirement. 7IM will look at how regulatory pressures are driving advisers to finesse their Centralised Retirement Propositions. To help with this, 7IM has commissioned research to evidence exactly what is important to clients in retirement, and how this matches advisers and their propositions. This research will be touched on throughout the presentation, and the full findings can be shared with attendees after the event. With Consumer Duty on the horizon, knowing exactly what is important in retirement to clients now and in the future can help you align your ‘advice stack’ to the full lifecycle of client needs.

• To review the ‘in & at retirement’ landscape to understand what has changed since 2019
• Review key themes identified in research and how the wider industry is approaching clients in this life stage
• Explore what solutions might be suitable in the current climate
• Understand key ways to help ‘future proof’ a retirement proposition to meet changing regulatory and investment conditions

TBC

Learning objectives:

The Professional Map is the market-led competency framework that sets the benchmark for professional excellence in your sector. It lays out the technical expertise and behaviours needed by professionals to add value to their business and drive good client outcomes. We want to help you use the Professional map to help drive a culture of professionalism, help to demonstrate to the regulator a commitment to people development as well as ensuring the right capabilities are in place.

The session will cover:

1. What the Professional Map is and how it’s being used to underpin learning and CPD
2. How competencies can be used to drive good client outcomes   
3. How you can use the Professional Map, no matter the size of your firm

Figuring out the right price to charge for your products and services is a fundamental consideration for anyone wishing to operate a profitable business. In the same vein, clients are always trying to assess whether they are being charged appropriately for the products and services they receive. Now, with the introduction of the FCA’s Consumer Duty rules, advisory firms will be required to assess whether the services they provide for the price they charge represents fair value. Given that the perception of value can be highly subjective, this presents firms with a number of challenges to their service and business models. This presentation will consider the impact of Consumer Duty on advisers’ value propositions, with a particular emphasis on pricing.

Learning Objectives

• Explore a framework for assessing price and fair value
• Use adviser benchmarking and client survey data from Dimensional’s global studies to test for fair value
• Discuss how firms can communicate the value of their advice
• Understand where how the price of financial advice fits within contributes to the total cost of the value proposition