IA targets doubling of assets to £15trn in the next decade

Wednesday 6th February 2019

The Investment Association is today setting out an ambitious target to double the assets under management to £15trn in the next decade, as part of a plan to enhance the UK’s competitiveness and reputation as a global hub for asset management.

IA members currently manage £7.7trn of assets, and are committed to doubling that. The goal forms part of the Investment Association’s response to the Treasury’s Future International Strategy for Financial Services, which seeks to ensure that the financial sector continues to be an engine for growth and jobs in the UK.

Chris Cummings, Chief Executive of the Investment Association, said:

“The Government is ambitious about the future of financial services in the UK, and we are equally ambitious about what can be achieved in the asset management industry.

“Asset management has gone from strength to strength over the last decade, with a total of £7.7trn managed by the IA’s 250 members and more than 100,000 jobs supported across the sector. Our ambition to double the assets under management to £15trn reflects our belief that by putting innovation, resilience and openness at the heart of our industry we can continue to deliver for savers and investors who trust us with their money.

“The Asset Management Taskforce will continue to provide a platform for government, industry and regulators to tackle these opportunities and ensure our industry continues to prosper.”

The response also sets out recommendations of how the industry can support the UK’s global competitiveness agenda while continuing to provide essential services to global savers and investors.

The IA response focuses on the three pillars of openness, innovation and resilience, identified by the Government as key drivers of the competitiveness agenda, and makes a series of recommendations in each of those areas.

These include:

Openness

• Promote the UK as a global hub for investment management - The UK should host a world class economic forum for investment management to attract the world’s most significant investors.
• Make the UK a ‘go to’ destination for international businesses and talent - Prioritise legal, fiscal and regulatory measures to ensure that the market is demonstrably competitive internationally, efficient and perceived as open for business. This means having joined-up policies which grow and attract talent to fill skills gaps through education, for instance in the University sector, and immigration.

Innovation

• Maintain the leading edge on FinTech - Establish a specific work stream under the HM Treasury’s Asset Management Taskforce to examine issues and deliver a buy-side FinTech Strategy by Q3 2019.
• Create a globally attractive UK funds range - Develop a distinctive range of fund types, making provision for alternative and long term investment products to satisfy future client requirements at home and abroad, which can be mutually recognised between jurisdictions around the world. This will also attract inward investment into the UK.

Resilience

• Increase cyber-resilience and measures to tackle economic crime - Develop an electronic ID or digital identity system that can be used across the private sector, and used internationally, via mutual recognition. This would be done alongside measures to report and tackle crime.
• Demonstrate the role of the UK as a global leader in corporate governance and stewardship - Use the IA to demonstrate the value of the UK’s long-term investment approach. Good governance focused dialogues – using the UK’s Stewardship Code and other market-based initiatives - are to be encouraged with all of the markets identified by the EST. These would highlight both the UK as a place to invest, and our governance approach so that it could be promoted and adopted internationally, so spreading the UK’s global soft power.

-ENDS-

For further information, please contact:

Ben Rathe, Senior Communications Manager: [email protected]
T +44 (0)20 7269 4696

Notes for Editors

About the Investment Association:

The IA champions UK asset management, supporting British savers, investors and businesses. Our 250 members manage £7.7 trillion of assets and the asset management industry supports 100,000 jobs across the UK.

Our mission is to make investment better. Better for clients, so they achieve their financial goals. Better for companies, so they get the capital they need to grow. And better for the economy, so everyone prospers.

• Our purpose is to ensure investment managers are in the best possible position to:
• Build people’s resilience to financial adversity
• Help people achieve their financial aspirations
• Enable people to maintain a decent standard of living as they grow older
• Contribute to economic growth through the efficient allocation of capital.

The money our members manage is in a wide variety of investment vehicles including authorised investment funds, pension funds and stocks and shares ISAs.
The UK is the second largest investment management centre in the world, after the US and manages 35% of all assets managed in Europe.