INSURANCE giant Prudential yesterday dealt a severe blow to the new
Personal Investment Authority when it opted for regulation directly by
the Securities and Investments Board instead.
The PIA is due to take over self-regulation of providers of investment
products from the two current bodies Lautro and Fimbra this summer, but
it has been dogged by controversy.
Critics have argued for a statutory body independent of companies
within the industry after a series of scandals over mis-selling of
insurance and pension policies.
Prudential is regarded as an industry leader and its decision to opt
for the SIB, the City's ultimate authority, could tempt others to defect
from the PIA.
Halifax Building Society, the UK's largest mortgage lender, which is
to start its own life assurance and pensions company next year, said
yesterday it had serious reservations about the PIA.
It has yet to decide on its regulator and if it, too, snubs the new
authority, a serious question mark will be placed over its future.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article