Our Weekly Newsletter

Across Instinctif Partners’ Financial Services team, we are always keeping an eye on the key developments taking place across the sector to evaluate their impact on the many businesses we work with. Here we share our picks of the week’s most interesting news, and our expert views.

News you can use

Female fintech founders outperform UK average

Female-led fintechs entered the pandemic with the longest funding runway across the sector, with nearly 78% having 18 months or more of cash, a study by KPMG has revealed. In contrast, the study found that nearly half of all fintechs had less than 18 months of funding remaining. KPMG also revealed that the sector is seeing increasing losses, with 84% of fintechs reporting growing shortfalls over the past 12 months. All in all, the sector is expected to lose £1.5bn in 2020. (From AltFi, 14 July 2020)

Woodford re-emerges in asset management world with investment boutique

Neil Woodford, the former star fund manager, has re-emerged in the asset management world with boutique investment firm Juno Capital, advising on the same type of illiquid assets that led to his downfall last year. According to Sky News, Woodford Investment Management is working with the firm in an advisory capacity as it looks to build a portfolio of unquoted healthcare companies. Woodford, however, is not managing money for Juno Capital’s clients. (From FT Adviser, 13 July 2020)

Wealthy individuals remerge from the pandemic with renewed focus

A UBS survey of nearly 4,000 high net-worth investors has shown that the rich plan to make permanent changes to their lifestyle after the pandemic, with the majority claiming they will travel less and spend more time with family. Money-wise, 67% of these wealthy individuals have said their attitude towards money has changed, with more than half fearing whether they have sufficient liquidity to weather another pandemic and just over half being worried about leaving a smaller inheritance. The report states that “Many investors emerged with greater clarity, and a renewed focus on the most important things in life”. (From The Times, 14 July 2020)

Borrowing for over 55s product launched linked to pensions

A new financial services brand for the over 55s market, free2, has launched an unsecured loan which will allow customers to access a new source of funds by using their spare affordable pension income. The loan will allow those aged 55-70 to borrow up to £150,000 over five to 20 years and free2 argues that it addresses the market need for a range of different options for this age group to raise capital in retirement. The loan will be free from the usual risks, such as estate liability, forcing the spending of savings or having to drawdown taxable sums from flexible pension pots.  (From What Investment, 13th July 2020)

SEC commissioner calls for better ESG labelling

One of the US investment industry’s top regulators and senior official at the Securities and Exchange Commission, Elad Roisman, has called for asset managers to provide clearer explanations of how environmental, social and governance metrics could affect the performance of ESG-labelled funds. Speaking at the Society for Corporate Governance’s national conference, Roisman argued that “retail investors who want ‘green’ or ‘sustainable’ products deserve more clarity and information about the choices they have” which could be achieved by improvements in disclosure standards. He goes on to speculate that some asset managers were misusing ESG labels as a “virtue signalling tactic” to present themselves favourably to investors. (From Financial Times, 12th July 2020)