'The client is a cash cow'

Most of the financial industry clearly couldn't care less about customers, says Merryn Somerset Webb. It is almost entirely occupied with looking out for ways to rip them off.

A few weeks ago I interviewed Angus Tulloch of First State. Angus is an excellent manager with a long history of impressive investment performance. He's also, as he puts it himself, an Asiaphile, and is sure that over the long term anyone invested in the Asia Pacific region will end up pleased with the result. We talked about how that might or might not happen, and I've edited it down for you here. I hope you find it interesting.

One thing we discussed that I didn't put in the transcript was the nature of the financial services industry's responsibilities towards the general public both moral and financial. First State has its managers adhere to their own Hippocratic Oath for asset managers. This includes such promises as "I will treat my clients at all times as I would wish to be treated"; "I will not forget in my search for returns that the primary risk faced by my clients is losing their capital"; and "I will not allow the pursuit of personal gain to cloud my fiduciary role." It is simple stuff. But seeing it written down so clearly is a nasty reminder of just how few financial institutions adhere to any kind of socially acceptable behaviour when it comes to their clients.

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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.