The Platforum have teamed up with threesixty and Raymond James to offer IFAs a half day seminar examining the practicalities of delivering discretionary investment management to clients.

Please see our events page, or sign in and click on the attachment below

By David Ferguson, CEO, Nucleus Financial Group

“I guess most industries evolve and develop on the fuel of innovation provided by smaller new entrants but surely nowhere can this be truer than in retail financial services, where the real battle is beginning to take shape.

We held a stochastic modelling seminar in October 2009 to debate and review the topic:

“This House believes that stochastic modelling tools are the best way to deliver financial advice to clients via intermediaries and that these tools must be a core part of any platform proposition.”

The attached paper provides an overview and includes input from the tools providers, actuaries, compliance experts and IFA businesses.

We start with congratulations to Nucleus who announced they had broken through the £1bn barrier last Friday. Well done to all there.

By Malcolm Murray, Marketing Director, Transact

Following the appointment of Lady Ashton as the the EU foreign policy chief, I read recently that concern has been expressed that a French EU commissioner, Michel Barnier, has been appointed as the head of the internal markets and financial services portfolio in the next European Commission.