Michael qualified as a Chartered Accountant in 1971. After qualifying he joined Deloitte in London, later moving to their Paris office. He was a Corporate Finance Executive with Charterhouse Group (now part of HSBC) and also held responsibility for a large commercial and industrial property portfolio owned by the bank, acting as a Director of a number of its European subsidiaries. Most of his career has been devoted to the Financial Services sector, where he has been a Founder, CEO or senior director of regulated businesses, including general and life insurance and pension investment.
Keynote
Michael stressed that the IFISA wrapper does not include equity crowdfunding.
He said that the key question is around how to popularise the IFISA wrapper, which has suffered a somewhat slow start. He also said that cash ISAs should carry risk warnings since savers are losing money in real terms every year.
There is almost £600 billion in the ISA market, representing a huge opportunity.
He said that the government is not going to hit its current target of building 300,000 new homes a year – but that IFISA money, supporting SME housebuilders, could be the solution.
Panel