Recent news

We all agree to having a healthy business environment. So why water down measures that would reduce the risk of fraud and mis-statements?

The ruling is a travesty because the judge has ignored or misunderstood the points made by Dr Dean Buckner (policy director, UKSA) and Professor Ken Dowd, Durham University.

The Campaign.

UKSA has been supporting PAC policyholders who object to ‘Part VII’ process of transferring insurance obligations from Prudential to Rothesay Life. 

UKSA and ShareSoc policy teams were contacted, as rated by the IASB and for providing useful feedback on accounting standards, to provide further input to their goodwill and impairment project

FRC doing their best to keep audit reform momentum going

UKSA directors Martin White and Helen Gibbons attended a conference in Slovenia organised by Better Finance – the European umbrella body for organisations representing individual investors. Helen is a director of Better Finance and Martin was an invited speaker, text here.

UKSA’s policy team are drafting a reply jointly with ShareSoc to the Financial Reporting Council’s consultation on proposed revisions to the Audit Firm Governance Code.

HMT wants to facilitate wider participation in the ownership of public companies, and to remove the current disincentives. 

It will be brilliant if HMT achieves this.  It would be a win/win/win for society, companies and investors, allowing for a broader cross-section of society to benefit, provide companies access to a broader investor base, and helping to increase the liquidity of markets.  The consultation document can be found here.

Policyholders risk of both being unable to understand the issues and being misrepresented.

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has proposed changes to its approach on Part VII insurance business transfers.  This is set out in GC 21/3.  The consultation can be found here.

Arbitrary manipulation of discount rates can ‘create’ reported capital, misleading prospective investors, creditors or policyholders.

Creation comes from use of discount rates in excess of the risk-free rate.

The use of discount rates that are in excess of risk-free rates is a pervasive issue that affects all firms with medium to long term debt, often with a material impact on the accounts.

This approach is rejected by all financial economists and has been raised as a serious concern by many stakeholders. 

It is crucial that the interests and concerns of policyholders are represented to the Regulator.  UKSA’s own expert has not had any useful response from the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).

We are sending our comments to the Expert.

We have written to the FCA’s Chairman asking for a single point of contact between UKSA or another nominated policyholder representative.