The FSA have warned against sharp selling practices for Venture Capital Trusts

It appears that the capital was secure only to the extent that the same could be said of European Capital Funding Plc (ECFP), the entity backing the bond. ECFP has proved to be without sufficient substance. The bond was managed by Nvesta. We warned you about unrecognised default risk in structured products.

The Treasury Special Committee reports on "a savings industry that has failed to adapt to the modern world"

A key feature of the Stakeholder pension was the fees cap of 1% per annum. Now the Treasury has caved in to industry pressure to raise the cap. It is to be raised to 1.5 per cent for the first 10 years, thereafter reverting to 1 per cent.

Four Invesco Perpetual funds have raised their fees from 1.25% to 1.5%.These Invesco funds have recently been high in the performance tables under flavour-of-the-month manager Neil Woodford. Could he have asked for a salary increase?

The FSA has announced that "the softing and bundling of non-execution goods and services are not in the interests of investors". To eliminate conflicts of interest the scope of such arrangements is to be limited to execution services and investment research . Also, the industry is to be given "space to develop a transparent mechanism for identifying the price of investment research included in commissions". This is three years after the Myners report came to the same conclusion.

As part of a much wider review the FSA has announced a relaxation of the regulations restricting the use of performance fees by authorised funds. The campaign to allow performance fees as a benefit to investors has been misconceived. Its protagonists fail to understand the role of volatility in generating these fees.