Twice a year and once every three years, the world of foreign currency trading gets a peek at the trajectory of OTC FX markets. Having just gone through the April 2016 results from semiannual FX surveys by major central banks, I am now anxiously awaiting the early-September interim results from the April 2016 Bank for International Settlements triennial FX survey.
Distribution is a question and concern on every life insurance and annuities company’s mind. What new channels should we experiment in? What should our distribution strategy look like? What types of consumers are most important to our strategy, and how do we reach them? What type of products are most important to our strategy, and what consumers are they fit for? All of these questions are being pondered today in an effort to define the distribution strategies of tomorrow.
Just two years ago, “robo” models on the market included over a dozen direct-to-client models (e.g., Wealthfront, Betterment, Personal Capital). Despite the enthusiasm surrounding robos by wealth managers and even a small pocket of clients, they were lacking the institutional buy-in needed to achieve scale. That changed in October 2014. Fidelity broke new ground when it formed a partnership with Betterment Institutional that would give the more than 3,000 advisors on its platform the ability to service the mass-affluent through digital advice. Fidelity ultimately dissolved the partnership in favor of internalizing its digital effort. Still, the endorsement was a needed catalyst for digital.
After many uneventful years and diligent care of my data, I got hit with a card fraud, and a rather big one. One of my cards I use primarily for travel—it helps me keep expenses in one place and easily track them. Due to the limited use, I typically just pay the balance without much thought. Yes, I know I should be reviewing the transactions, especially as it is primarily a travel card, but we don’t all follow our own advice.