The Investment Association comments on Mansion House speech
Karen Northey, Director of Corporate Affairs at the Investment Association commented:
“The Chancellor has set out an ambitious agenda to ensure the UK’s financial services sector continues to flourish and play its role in delivering economic growth. Our industry strongly supports her commitment to recalibrate risk and acknowledgement of the importance of investment to grow the economy.
“The new remit letters to the regulator rightly emphasise the importance of growth and competitiveness. The FCA’s secondary objective is central to ensuring the UK remains a world-leading centre – not just for investment management – but for innovation and wellbeing of all, and we are pleased to see the Chancellor recognise that appropriate risk in the system is a positive and growth-oriented necessity.
“We want to ensure the UK remains an attractive place for companies to list, invest and do business. This requires a rebalancing of attitude towards risk. Proposals to broaden access to private markets through PISCES and plans to make the UK a leading centre for green finance indicate a positive shift towards a growth-focused mindset. We are also pleased to see the government championing innovation by delivering on its plans to introduce a digital gilt – a key recommendation of the Asset Management Task Force’s work on tokenisation. As technology continues to evolve, speed and regulatory responsiveness will be critical to the success of these initiatives.
“Ensuring our pensions system is fit for purpose will be mission critical in securing the financial futures of millions across our country. The proposals to further consolidate both the LGPS and DC master trusts are an important step. To fully realise the benefit, we must ensure that we deliver ‘sophisticated scale’ – placing an emphasis on strong governance, accountability and appropriate investment expertise to deliver the most productive outcomes and create value for money for savers. With an ambitious approach, this could channel more pensions capital into fast-growing businesses and infrastructure projects.
“Today’s announcements mark the welcome start of a bold reform programme and we believe even more can be achieved. We look forward to continuing to engage with government over the coming months, to help establish a culture of inclusive investment and create a world-leading economy and investment management sector.”
For further information, please contact:
Helen Ayres, Head of Communications: [email protected]
T: +44 (0)20 7269 4620
Ellen Hodgetts, Communications Manager: [email protected]
T: +44 7548841289
Ismail Abdi, Communications Executive: [email protected]
T: +44 7596 872575
IA Press Office: [email protected]
About the Investment Association (IA):
- The IA champions UK investment management, supporting British savers, investors and businesses. Our 250 members manage £9.1 trillion of assets and the investment management industry supports 126,400 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 37% of all assets managed in Europe.