The temperature is rising in the City

As a resident of the City of London, I can tell you it is currently very hot! The picture above shows Rachel Reeves in the foreground and the dome of St Paul’s behind her, it is dwarfed by glass fronted sky-scrapers as my mother quaintly calls them. The City of London is governed by the Corporation that issues me with bin bags and clears my rubbish, but it has a more important job, finance is the business of Britain and the Corporation is the “concierge” that brings new business to these huge buildings.

My door is always open

City of London – open 24 hours a day, seven days a week!

We need high-end domestic staff like the Plowman!

We are losing our butlers, the FT tells us, a problem created by a loss of wealthy people choosing overseas residency

Well our manor is a Mansion and our Mansion House is the Cockpit pub, not 20 yards from where I live! We should not underestimate the value of London to the financial community!

In the Cockpit – my local

My Mum and the world needs Rachel to get things even hotter!

The old stands behind the new and Rachel Reeves is looking to stoke up the fires of our finance industry so that we can forget the mess she and the Government got into over Welfare, My mother at 93 got attendance allowance granted yesterday, thanks Rachel, thanks Liz Kendell.

Seriously – what does a concierge at the front door – mean?

The idea of a financial services “concierge service” — also backed by the Bank of England — will emulate similar bespoke services in other financial centres such as Singapore. A Treasury official said the move would “help put the UK ahead in the global race for financial business as part of wide-ranging strategy to double down on the UK’s global strengths”.

Reeves will use the speech to launch a financial services plan — the sector is one of eight “growth” industries identified in the government’s industrial strategy — as well as announcing other initiatives to boost its competitiveness. The concierge service, launching this autumn, will provide what the Treasury calls “a single front door to attract international financial services firms to the UK”, including helping companies to obtain visas and advise on regional skills and expertise outside London.

A government official said the service, based in the Office for Investment, would also bring together regulators to help businesses navigate the UK’s red tape. It will be set up as a public-private partnership between the Prudential Regulation Authority, the Financial Conduct Authority, the City of London Corporation and government, with secondments and partnerships with financial services firms.

It’s big boy/girl stuff. No mention of TPR down in Brighton, this is about generating growth not protecting wealth in pensions.

The City of London Corporation, which developed the idea, said this week that the UK had seen a decline in its market share of foreign direct investment projects in financial and professional services, with its share falling by 4 per cent between 2017 and 2024.

The chancellor’s speech will also include plans for ditching paper share certificates and investor communications in a long-awaited move to save money by digitising shareholder registers and bringing the UK in line with many other countries.

The scrapping of physical share certificates is widely seen as the first step in modernising how UK-listed companies communicate with their shareholders. It aims to do away with an estimated two tonnes of paper notifications and reports sent to custodian banks every day, much of which goes straight in the bin.

I see the bins , the FT , the Corporation and the Chancellor are as one.

This will be great for my neighbours in the City and those thinking of coming to work here. It shows how change can happen where regulators, government and business are aligned and I am sure that the City will bring change.

Meantime I wonder if change will come to the Pension Regulator in this way?

Sir Douglas Flint, chair of asset manager Aberdeen Group, was appointed by ministers three years ago to review the system as part of efforts to revitalise the UK’s ailing capital markets, which have been hit by a series of companies moving their main listings overseas or going private.

Reeves is expected to announce that the UK will initially switch to a twin-track system that mirrors the current set-up in digital form with sub-registers and a centralised depository. She will outline a longer-term plan to move to a single, centralised digital record of shareholdings.

Britain’s finance industry is getting back to the top of the ladder, from which it has slipped. We were once at the top of the pension ladder too, till we decided to swap growth for “de-risking”. I live in a City called London, it is greater even than the City of Westminster in making things happen in the UK.  I look forward to hearing all about it from the Mansion House on Tuesday.

I will not be in that dining room in person but I will be there in spirit.

Panoramic view of Tower Bridge and the downtown city skyline at twilight with reflection in the still River Thames, London, England.