Influential Sipps figures, as well as financial advisers, have voiced support for a permitted list of Sipp investments in the face of growing Sipp regulation.
At a Sipps panel debate organised by Barnett Waddingham at the Heron Tower in London this week there was broad agreement that a permitted list – a list of allowable investments – would be a good way to restore confidence in the Sipp market which is being hit with a number of regulatory reviews and changes.
Andrew Roberts, a partner at BW, said a permitted list would ensure that unwelcome investment were kept out of Sipps but admitted that a joint-industry permitted list was unlikely to happen soon.
He said that BW had its own in-house permitted list which was an invaluable guide to staff and advisers and meant "more esoteric" investments were treated with caution and extra scrutiny.
Partners of Barnett Waddingham Andrew Roberts and Julia Bassett were joined by BW's Andy Leggett, adviser Minesh Patel, Andrew Summers, head of fund research at Investec and Paul Gorman of Beaufort Planning to exchange thoughts and discuss the future of Sipps. The event looked at how regulation may affect the future of Sipps.
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Andrew Roberts, who blogs for Sipps Professional, chaired the meeting and fellow partner Julia Bassett joined in the discussion and also talked about the partnership's new Flexible Sipp launched recently.
Financial adviser for EA Financial Solutions Minesh Patel voiced his concerns over the growing level of regulation. Mr. Patel, felt that, in order to improve matters, "the regulations should list or state what is and isn't permissible" in order to avoid confusion and keep out high risk investments which were not in the investor's interests.
He added, however, that, "Sipps are phenomenal vehicles" and are "phenomenally good investments" for those who are considering a personal pension and said that overall he believed extra regulation was a good thing and was helping to improve consumer confidence.
Andy Leggett, head of Sipp business development for Barnett Waddingham, said that he felt the biggest change for the Sipp sector would be the Budget changes which he felt would "release an earthquake" in the sector.
Paul Gorman, financial adviser for Beaufort Planning, welcomed extra regulation and said that he felt "regulation has given our clients more comfort."
While there was broad agreement that additional regulation was a positive step and would help consumer confidence some of the panel felt that the extra burden of regulation would have an adverse effect on some of the smaller Sipp operators, particularly those exposed heavily to property investments, and may force a reduction in their numbers.
Andrew Summers of Investec said he felt that the growing use of DFMs would affect the Sipps market positively as many DFM operators and bigger platforms would not take the risks of some smaller Sipp players and their influence would grow in coming years.