Feedback from my mother (a normal human being) after completing an investment risk questionnaire designed by academics and compliance experts

I, of course, tried to defend the importance of such questionnaires 🤥 pic.twitter.com/38dtoA0t2P

— Elliot Guthrie (@elliotguthrie) February 16, 2024

So long as the world contains families like the Guthries there is hope. Elliot is a stalwart of the Pension PlayPen and a fine certified financial planner from Edinburgh. Closer inspection of the image suggests there may be another Guthrie commenting in green. I imagine the conversation continued in the same tone and I am only sorry we don’t get more (of Dad?)

We are becoming expert in making it unpleasant for people to purchase financial services.  I suppose it is the collective medicine we must take to avoid calamity but there really is no excuse for annoying senior citizens such as Mr and Mrs Guthrie.

I must see if I can meet up with the remarkably affable looking Elliott who looks an antidote to the guff I am going to get dished out at the PLSA investment conference.

Normal human  beings are increasingly rare in financial services. My favourite recent story of a PLSA conference was a presentation made to us by someone in an office adjacent to mine in London. The presenter had been prevented from travelling to  compliance office as we were on the verge of lockdown.

Unfortunately, the presentation to those of us who had travelled 400  miles for the privilege of meeting him face to face, ended badly. He had a perfectly compliant presentation but insufficient power in his laptop battery. Consequently he cut out with several slides to go, a couple of which would inevitably have been the disclaimers.

There was some discussion about whether we should whistle blow on the poor fellow. The consensus was that we would let him off as we were already in breach of his compliance department’s high standards and it turned out that his company had paid a substantial fee to speak.

I can’t remember what he was talking about , who he worked for or even who he was. I only remember that I never saw the compliance screens.

Reduce risk ≠ do no business

The best way to avoid compliance is not to use slides when speaking and not allow your words to be recorded and distributed. The best way to avoid the financial risks associated with new business is not to do any new business.

The quietest graveyard is of course the aspiration of any compliance team’s property portfolio. I accept that much of the work we put clients to , is designed to reduce scamming but there are better way

≠≠

Perhaps we should align interests and put our customers out of our misery.