July 2008

A brave new world

Tell me about your career to date?

I've been in pensions for all my working life. I started out at Equity and Law which eventually became part of the Axa Group. From there I moved into pension scheme consultancy and I was out in the field often trying to persuade IFAs to move from final salary schemes into money purchase. It's interesting looking back as this is a much bigger issue now but it has obviously been going on for longer than you might think.

In 1987 I moved to Cannon Lincoln which is now better known as Lincoln Financial. It was here that I got into pensions marketing. I stayed with Lincoln for 13 years and saw them grow substantially. It gave me a really good grounding in different life company pension products.

During my time at Lincoln I started to look more at the SIPP market and had started to talk to companies such as PPML and James Hay and when Lincoln exited the UK market I moved to PPML full time seven years ago. That was a real learning curve as it was a small company that went through a period of strong growth and it gave me real insight into the different ways of constructing and administering different SIPP arrangements. I was then lucky enough to be approached by Rowanmoor who asked me to become their product development manager.

What attracted you to Rowanmoor?

There were a number of reasons really. Over time I had less contact with the sales side of things and I was really looking to reconnect with the end customer. I also have a lot of respect for David Seaton and Ian Hammond who set up the company and have built a reputation for real innovation and excellent service. I really like they way they look at developing new products.

Rowanmoor are also very active in the wider industry. For instance both Ian and David have been past chairmen of the Association of Pensioneer Trustees. I like to get involved in wider industry issues as well. For instance I am very much involved in AMPS and it's good that Rowanmoor supports my involvement.

What will be your main aims in your new job?

Essentially I have been given a very wide brief. I'll be focusing on how to develop our current service offerings to further meet client needs as well as looking at moving into areas where we are not currently represented.

Rowanmoor's experience is in member directed pensions and we shall see how we can develop this expertise further. The decumulation market has also been big news this year with the advent of third way products and it's great that there are alternatives out there. We will also be looking closely at how the SIPP market is developing. There are currently three defined segments in the SIPP market - the niche SIPP, the deferred SIPP and online SIPP. They are all doing well and have their part to play going forward. We need to look more closely at what these products offer and how they can best be used.

I think the issue of client expectations is important going forward. The word SIPP spans such a wide area that I think there will need to be some repositioning in the market to make these divisions clearer. It's going to continue to be an interesting marketplace.

The increasing popularity of SIPPs has led many to say the SSAS market will die out. However, demand remains steady - how do you see the SSAS market developing in the future?

There was a lot of speculation pre A-Day about SSAS but I've always believed that there is still a place for them. There continue to be significant differences between SIPPs and SSAS and advisers giving quality advice should always consider them both. They will remain niche products going forward but remain a good option for small businesses and family run concerns. It's all about control and ownership of assets - we deal with a lot of entrepreneurs and with a SSAS they really do feel like it is their scheme.

What do you see as your main challenges going forward?

Rowanmoor is an influential company but my main task will be to grow awareness of what we do even more. Small companies are in a real position to bring innovation to the market and that's something that we need to get across to advisers. We need to let them know what we are doing and explain how it can benefit their clients.

We can also learn lessons from how the SIPP market has embraced technology for instance. Data feeds from investment managers for instance can play an important part in building service efficiencies. Service standards will become increasingly important. You can talk up your commitment to service as much as you like but at the end of the day the proof of the pudding is in the eating and it's a reputation that is both hard won and easily lost.

Robert Graves
Product Development Manager
Rowanmoor