Speaker: Charles Randell, Chair
Event: Investment Association Annual Dinner, Mansion House
Delivered: 10 October 2019
Note: this is the speech as drafted and may differ from the delivered version

Highlights:

• Let’s secure the UK investment industry’s world-leading position by focusing on the outcomes customers need.
• An investment industry which provides fair returns to its customers - the providers of capital.
• Allocating customers’ money to businesses which can best add sustainable long-term value.
• With innovation and fierce competition which benefit large investors, small investors, and the whole of society.

We’ve begun to debate the future of regulation at the FCA, taking stock of the system we currently have and considering the different options which may be available in the future, and I know you all have strong views on this. So it’s good to be here.

Tonight I’m going to talk about bridges.

Later this evening I’ll be going home over Southwark Bridge, just behind us, which opened for traffic nearly 100 years ago. It replaced a previous bridge which opened just over a hundred years before that, in 1819. Back in those days, bridges were fiercely competitive. Southwark Bridge charged you a toll to drive your horse and cart over it – customers would pay a bit more, so the theory went, to escape rush-hour on the toll-free London and Blackfriars Bridges on either side.

Unfortunately, it didn’t work. People had a keen eye for good value, and they voted with their – and their horses’ – feet. In 1864 the Bridge had to be bought out of bankruptcy by the investment fund that happened to own the other 2 competing bridges.

Speaker: Christopher Woolard, Executive Director of Strategy and Competition
Location: UBS Hedge Fund COO Conference, London
Delivered on: 10 October 2019

Highlights:

• The FCA sees D&I as a mainstream business issue that speaks to a firm’s culture and conduct.
• 75% of UK households use the services of an asset manager – this is a sector whose success depends on its ability to attract capital from investors of all backgrounds, demographics and income levels.
• Change won’t come overnight. Progressing on the issue of D&I means evaluating the specific barriers in your organisation, coming up with practical strategies to overcome them and evaluating what works and what doesn’t.
• This is no longer an issue that can be swept under the rug – the public have expectations about the firms that serve them and are increasingly vocal about them.

Note: this is the speech as drafted and may differ from the delivered version.

The D&I problem in asset management

Benjamin Franklin once said: 'An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.'

It is a maxim on which the asset management industry is built. Legitimately understanding more than your rivals about the markets in which you invest delivers better returns for your clients, and for you.

So, if one sector should be a leader in its approach to diversity and inclusion (D&I), it’s the investment management sector.