Positive role of the financial services sector is often overlooked

Next month one of the UK’s leading thinkers in pensions, insurance and investment, will give a fascinating insight into the way that pensions, insurance and investment firms support UK economic stability and growth through long-term investments during a public lecture at Leeds University Business School.

Ashok Gupta has a distinguished career in pensions, insurance, and investment, initially as a consultant, then as an executive and latterly as an entrepreneur.

His CV lists some of the UK’s leading financial services firms: he is a non-executive director of New Ireland Assurance, JP Morgan European Smaller Companies Trust, and the Ethical Journalism Network and a former chair of AA Insurance Services and Scandia UK.

He was founder director of the Phoenix Group, a non-executive director of the Pensions Regulator and J Rothschild Assurance (now St James Place Capital). Ashok is currently chairman of the Pensions and Lifetime Savings (PLSA) Defined Benefits Taskforce.

In his lecture on May 3, he will discuss how he has seen the financial services industry change during his career. He has identified what he believes are alarming trends in how certain sectors are investing, and the negative impact that this is having on the real economy.

During his career, Ashok has seen a decline in investment horizons – as funds are increasingly invested with a view to yielding returns more quickly rather than over a longer period – and a replacement of investment activity by trading activity. In his lecture, he will discuss his view that financial systems have become corrupted, due in part to modern financial theories and approaches to managing risk, and that these have undermined their ability to fulfil their original purpose.

In 2014, he was appointed deputy chair of a Bank of England Working Group, which reviewed how insurance companies and pension funds invest their assets.

The Bank of England Working Group found that a variety of factors including regulations, accounting rules, and market conventions were changing the way that insurance companies and pension funds were making investment decisions. This trend has had negative implications for growth and economic stability in the UK and according to his analysis, this is undermining the provision of long-term capital to the economy.

This event is part of Leeds University Business School’s Corporate Wisdom lecture series and will be of particular interest to those working in Yorkshire’s thriving financial services sector. The lecture is on May 3 at Leeds University Business School. Details available on the school’s website: http://business.leeds.ac.uk/