Maintaining Standard's trusty image

Sunday 19 August 2012

DAVID Nish was left scratching his head on Tuesday with surprise at the City's own surprise at a sparkling set of results delivered by his Standard Life Group.

Custom byline text:

By Shane Mullins

The results were the specific product of an intensive two-year spending and efficiency programme on Standard Life's infrastructure, service capability and brand proposition, which heavyweight investment figures had questioned. It followed hot on the heels of strong performance and clear strategy from Prudential and, perhaps surprisingly, a start to the turnaround in the fortunes of Edinburgh-based Aegon UK.

It seems only yesterday that scandal was very much insurance companies' domain through mis-selling of pensions and endowments, unacceptably high charges, and unfathomable contract terms. Yet the banks have now seemingly cornered the market. Trust the banks? Anyone? If the last 20 years has seen a strategy of growth-at-all-costs from the banks, they're paying an indeterminable cost now and for the foreseeable future. Nish and his team at Standard Life, a company not without troubles in the recent past, decided several years ago that to increase profitability they would need to increase assets, increase revenues from those assets, and cut operational costs. Although a part of this cut in costs has come sadly through reducing staff numbers, the larger part has come through significant investment in technology that puts more business through its infrastructure more efficiently; new, better products; and powerful positioning of its brand. Add to this that it ceased operating in areas where it didn't see a profitable future (banking and healthcare) and the fact that investment manager Standard Life Investments is a proven performer. Looking at what Nish was saying on Tuesday, Standard Life has also positioned itself well for two major initiatives in the UK – the retail distribution review, which impacts on the way advisers are paid for introducing business (Standard Life stopped paying commission years ago) and auto-enrolment into occupational pension schemes, which given Standard Life's 35,000 corporate pension clients would seem to offer huge potential for it to capitalise on. Perhaps the best part is that the customer is very much at the centre of Nish's transformation of Standard Life, which is key for all financial services companies. Profitable growth is good but not if it comes before customer experience. We need to trust financial institutions and understand at all times what they are doing with our money. Unfortunately the field that fall into this category has reduced alarmingly.Shane Mullins is chief executive of wealth management firm Fiscal Engineers

Contextual targeting label:

Finance

Commenting & Moderation

We moderate all comments on HeraldScotland on either a pre-moderated or post-moderated basis. If you're a relatively new user then your comments will be reviewed before publication and if we know you well then your comments will be subject to moderation only if other users or the moderators believe you've broken the rules, which are available here.

Moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours. Please be patient if your posts are not approved instantly.

Maintaining Standard's trusty image

Commenting & Moderation

MOST READ

SPONSORED LINKS

MOST COMMENTED