Published by Gbaf News
Posted on September 19, 2018
TIME Investments’ flagship long income PAIF, TIME: Commercial Freehold has moved to daily dealing,in response to adviser feedback. The fund, which offers investors the opportunity to access the only open ended long income property fund, has consistently delivered an annual income of over 4% plus capital growth.
The fund doubled in size in 2017 and now in its fifth year, it has seen its AUM grow to over £150 million.
This growth has been driven by investors increasingly looking for an investment providing “ballast” in uncertain times with secure income and low volatility of capital returns – two features offered by long income.
With traditional UK property funds significantly exposed to continued volatility caused by Brexit, advisers are increasingly looking to alternative investments for long term secure income to help make up the difference.Alternative property assets with long leases and strong covenants such as low service hotel chains, Premier Inn and Travelodge, in the right locations provide secure income, inflation linked rents and less volatile capital returns over the long-term.
Nigel Ashfield, fund manager of TIME:Commercial Freehold comments: “The move to daily dealing further enhances the liquidity of our fund, which is a key requirement for many advisers seeking income from alternative investments.
“Advisers are increasingly looking to diversify their allocation away from fixed income to property and other alternatives. The assets held in TIME: Commercial Freehold have not only demonstrated a secure, predicable income stream but also a lower correlation with more volatile traditional commercial property asset classes, over a period that included the UK’s decision to leave the EU”.
“These characteristics are highly sought after in today’s economic climate and make them suitable for many types of investors, particularly those seeking a robust income stream and low volatility of capital values, such as individuals looking to supplement a pension or those looking to save for school fees.”
Citywire has just announced that TIME: Commercial Freehold fund manager, Nigel Ashfield, has been awarded the coveted Citywire AAA rating. Achieving the AAA rating puts him in the top 2.5% of the 16,000 fund managers that Citywire tracks globally.
David Lumley of London based Arena Wealth Management comments: “I have been a supporter of Nigel and his long income funds for many years now and I’m delighted to see his expertise recognised by Citywire. This triple AAA rating comes as no surprise as the performance of Nigel’s funds over the years has been outstanding. Long income is a popular sector with our clients and the TIME funds offer income security, inflation protection and lower volatility making them a good fit for many investors.”
Central Bank
The Central Bank of Trinidad and Tobago
Other Banks
Bank of Baroda Trinidad and Tobago Limited
Citicorp Merchant Bank Ltd
First Citizens Bank
Intercommercial Bank Limited
Royal Bank of Trinidad and Tobago (RBTT)
Republic Bank
Scotiabank Trinidad and Tobago Limited
Tony Tarquini, Director of Insurance, EMEA, Pegasystems
The increase in the minimum employer contribution to auto-enrolled pensions from 1% to 2% in April 2018 represented an unmissable opportunity for the UK workforce to prepare for a comfortable retirement. However, the simultaneous rise in the minimum staff contribution from 1% to 3% has led to industry-wide concern that auto-enrolment opt-outs will grow, threatening the future of insurance companies.
Despite these concerns, there is no doubt whatsoever that technology can be used to educate, cross-sell, upsell, nudge, influence and encourage customers to understand the need to save, both for a rainy day and for their old age.
Millions of vulnerable consumers
Since auto-enrolment was introduced in 2012, nearly 10 million workers have been auto-enrolled in pensions according to figures from The Pensions Regulator. However, data released by the ONS as part of its Wealth and Assets Survey in August found auto-enrolment has not led to a noticeable change in attitudes towards saving.In the period July 2016 – December 2017, just 17% of 16 to 24s felt that they knew enough about pensions to make decisions about saving for retirement. When taking into account all non-retired respondents, less than half (42%) felt they knew enough.
Insurance group Zurich’s own research found some alarming statistics of its own. The company recently discovered 24% of adults have no savings to fall back on and that 17.6m people in the UK would struggle to recover from a financial shock or loss of income. This suggests that regulatory reform isn’t enough to alter consumer behaviour and highlights the need for inspiring change in other ways before it is too late.
I still get people asking me if auto-enrolment is a “good idea”. Nobody is talking about the upside benefits of employers’ contributions doubling from 1% to 2%. This is all free money and all the contributions are tax free. One way I have previously explained why auto-enrolment is a good idea is by asking the person to put £10 on the table and noting that I would then match it with £10 of my own money. I would then point out that they would receive 100% interest on day one and query how old they would have to grow to match that through normal interest. The answer is infinity at today’s rates! I would also point out that you only have to put up a maximum of £7.50 not £10, as it is pre-tax. It would take (literally) a lifetime to recoup the lost money if people opted out – doing so is like walking into the street and burning £10 notes. They then understand immediately.
Communication is key to behavioural change
I believe the key to behavioural change is effective marketing. Technology can be used to mass personalise every individuals’ pension product and show them how they can protect their lives and not live in penury in their old age. It just needs motivation, good customer engagement and the right tech!
Insurers should be using all forms of omni channel marketing technology to change behaviours. They can do this by providing business-friendly technology interfaces that help companies provide customer-centric, high-value engagements to improve every customer experience, enable more effective retention and achieve high response rates. This can include mobile apps, social media and artificial intelligence-based interactions to foster better engagement and buy-in.
For example, from August 2018, Aviva has been enabling customers to check how much money they have saved towards their pension by asking their Amazon Alexa, an easy way for the insurer to make the idea of saving for retirement much more engaging. Tech such as this can also help contextualise the importance of saving for a pension at every life stage, especially for those at the start of their careers with lots of short-term costs such as rent that they might prioritise over pensions.
AI can help identify the best time to talk
Artificial intelligence is a particularly useful technology in communicating the benefits of auto-enrolment as it can help insurers decide the best time to talk to their customers about pensions – at points of their lives consumers actually want to talk to their insurers. These points are known as “Life Events”. If a consumer is approaching a milestone, whether it be the placing of a deposit on a new home, engagement or new baby, they are far more likely to be ready to review their financial situation and be thinking about the future than they would if they were just thinking about the short-term. Expectant mothers and fathers may also be prompted to change their thinking about saving, as they realise that it is no longer just their futures that would be affected by financial shock but their children’s too.
The future of auto-enrolment
The minimum automatic enrolment contribution from employers is set to rise again on 6 April 2019 from 2% to 3%, but the minimum contribution from staff is due to rise from 3% to 5% on the same date. Insurers should take the opportunity to work with businesses now in an effort to prevent further auto-enrolment opt-outs.
Maya Angelou once famously said “people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel”. The intelligent application of AI insurers can appeal to people at just the right moment to help guide them to good decisions around auto-enrolment and have the potential for quite significant success.
Technological innovation will be key not only to reducing the number of consumers opting out but also encouraging more to change the way they think about pensions and savings in general.
AMX, the first open architecture marketplace for the buying and selling of asset management services, has announced that the Sal Pension Scheme and the Royal Insurance Group Pension Scheme (SALPS and RIGPS respectively), both of which are sponsored by RSA Insurance Group (RSA), have onboarded their Brandywine holdings onto the platform.
This $750 million investment brings AMX’s total assets under management (AUM) to over $6bn.
The addition of the Brandywine Global Sovereign Credit Fund also marks AMX’s first fixed income offering.
Commenting on this announcement, Oliver Jaegemann, Global Head of AMX, said:
“We are thrilled that SALPS and RIGPS have signed up to AMX as testament to the efficiencies afforded by our platform. The addition of Brandywine marks our first fixed income offering as well as helping us to break through the $6bn milestone.
“Since launch just 18 months ago, our AUM has grown fivefold and in this quarter alone, five new managers have onboarded onto AMX. We are also pleased to announce that we now have over 40 pension fund clients using our platform. These figures demonstrate the appetite in our industry to embrace new, innovative measures to save on time and costs and we look forward to continuing to grow and develop our offering.”
Nick Deahl, Head of Trustee Investment at RSA added:
“We share AMX’s goal of reducing inefficiencies in the pooled fund industry, along with achieving greater cost transparency and operational simplicity. We are therefore pleased to have entered into a strategic partnership with AMX as it provides the opportunity to achieve these efficiencies as well as support innovation in the marketplace.”
Snowflake Computing, the only data warehouse built for the cloud, today announced that nonprofit organisation Parkinson’s UK is using Snowflake’s cloud data warehouse to become more data driven; supporting those with Parkinson’s, carers, volunteers, fundraisers, and researchers more effectively. Snowflake technology will help create even greater transparency into how funds are deployed – all through the power of data.
Formed in 1969, Parkinson’s UK was created to help patients and their families suffering from the disease through research, while also raising money from events and donations to support its work in the field.
Parkinson’s needed a data warehousing solution to support fundraising initiatives by easily ingesting different data sets into one single source of truth and adding intelligence.
Historically, data has been siloed, and access to data across different departments has been especially difficult. In moving from its series of current databases, Parkinson’s UK will capitalise on the cost effectiveness, flexibility and scalability of Snowflake’s data warehouse.
“The aim for our charity is maximising the amount of funding to help those that are suffering the most. What is often overlooked is the central role that data plays in furthering these goals. Since partnering with Snowflake, we’ve been able to accumulate all the different data sets across our divisions into one central space, and easily analyse all available data in real-time”, said Julie Dodd, Director of Digital Transformation, Parkinson’s UK.
Julie continued: “We strive to keep costs as low as possible. As responsible stewards of funds, the Snowflake consumption model was a great fit, as was the self-managing Snowflake platform. As a result, our IT team could focus on high value tasks rather than the need to manage multiple databases, all while giving users faster access to data.”
Parkinson’s UK will now focus on new data initiatives and how to share relevant insights of its research with other research institutions in real-time. This will help to speed up advancements and communication around the condition.
“We are thrilled to support the data needs for Parkinson’s UK to help drive its funding and research initiatives”, says Thibaut Ceyrolle, VP of EMEA at Snowflake Computing. “This is only the start of our relationship. By working closer with Parkinson’s UK we want to help the charity achieve its aims by sharing relevant data insights such as new research or ground-breaking improvements for Parkinson’s sufferers. Data can now be simply and securely shared with relevant external shareholders, boosting collaboration and all in real-time.”
Snowflake Computing recently took part in Parkinson’s UK London to Paris bike ride, on August 28th 2018, in order to support the charity and raise money for those suffering from Parkinson’s.
