Forget the gimmicks – it's trust we need

Trust in the financial services sector is already low, says Merryn Somerset Webb. Let's not make it worse with bells and whistles.

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A wise move but does your fund manager need to be involved?
(Image credit: ferrantraite)

I'm reading a book called No Small Change: Why Financial Services Needs a New Kind of Marketing. I know what most readers will think: financial services don't need better marketing, they need better products. That's partly fair and possibly why the book suggests that the industry gives up on the "impossible task of restoring trust" and instead just works on "managing consumer distrust".

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Merryn Somerset Webb

Merryn Somerset Webb started her career in Tokyo at public broadcaster NHK before becoming a Japanese equity broker at what was then Warburgs. She went on to work at SBC and UBS without moving from her desk in Kamiyacho (it was the age of mergers).

After five years in Japan she returned to work in the UK at Paribas. This soon became BNP Paribas. Again, no desk move was required. On leaving the City, Merryn helped The Week magazine with its City pages before becoming the launch editor of MoneyWeek in 2000 and taking on columns first in the Sunday Times and then in 2009 in the Financial Times

Twenty years on, MoneyWeek is the best-selling financial magazine in the UK. Merryn was its Editor in Chief until 2022. She is now a senior columnist at Bloomberg and host of the Merryn Talks Money podcast -  but still writes for Moneyweek monthly. 

Merryn is also is a non executive director of two investment trusts – BlackRock Throgmorton, and the Murray Income Investment Trust.