cFi: NacFb

Political gains

With the General Election, the battle lines between the main political parties were drawn up. Nikki Cann, associate director of the NACFB, looks at the proposed policies of each party and where the broker might be better off

by

Nikki Cann

associate director, NACFB

First of all, I ought to admit that the prospect of a general election filled me with about as much excitement as the prospect of a dental check up. The advantage with the check up, however, is that there isn’t a month of posturing and hot air from rival dentists before the final event. I don’t have to suffer hygienists harrumphing around my living room for four weeks telling me that my life is rubbish and it’s actually all the other bloke’s fault. But there’s no way around it, the date was announced as the 6th of May.

So I thought that, in the spirit of education, I would actually read the various manifestos and policy pronouncements and see what each party is proposing in key areas affecting the financial services industry. It may be too late by the time you read this as May 6 may have come and gone but I have looked at their economic policies and their proposals for small businesses – and their proposals for regulation in the financial services industry. Forewarned is forearmed.

LiberaL Democrats

We will start with the smallest of the three, and the one therefore probably in the best position to make more daring promises. The Liberal Democrats were looking to cut red tape for the SME

42 mortgage introducer MAY 2010

community, something which has been something of a costly headache for business owners for some years. They promised to look at the impact of any regulation before it is introduced and were looking to operate at ‘one in, one out’ policy for new pieces of legislation. They were also proposing to support local enterprise funds and create Regional Stock Exchanges (interesting idea or gimmick?) to allow smaller businesses access to investment without having to go to the City for a listing.

Perhaps most interestingly, they specifically stated that they want to ‘get banks lending responsibly’ to small businesses again. How they propose to do that was a little less obvious, but

their pledge to ‘end the gold plating of European Directives’ might help in bending some of the strictures of Basle 2 (assuming that this was one of the pieces of legislation that was gold plated. Otherwise there is no room to move). Although some banks are arguably the architects of their own misfortune, the strict capital adequacy rules set down in this particular piece of European legislation means that the very fact of public investment (and, more pertinently, the subsequent plummet in share prices) many aren’t able to lend any more without breaking these rules. Shoring up tattered balance sheets has been paramount and the PR operations to pretend that ‘banks are lending more than ever’ is simply smoke and mirrors. Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48