LONDON (28 June 2017) – Aon plc (NYSE:AON), has responded to the final report of the Financial Conduct Authority's (FCA) Market Study.

Andy Cox, CEO EMEA, Aon Hewitt, said:
"We welcome the FCA’s decision to publish and to seek further views on the undertakings in lieu (UILs), and we look forward to opening the dialogue on these measures to other industry participants. We are confident that the UILs represent best practice and as a firm we intend to adopt the transparency and disclosure elements of them on a voluntary basis.

"We support the FCA’s proposal that investment consultants are to be regulated by the FCA.  We chose to be regulated by the FCA in 2011 and we extend the principles of this regulation across our whole UK investment practice.  This will promote consistently high standards across the industry, although it represents little change for us.

“Most of all, as this process moves on, we will continue to remain focused on providing the best service to our clients."

Tim Giles, head of UK Investment Consulting at Aon Hewitt, said:
“Overall, in the report we are pleased that the FCA proposes disclosure of a single all-in-fee which would include ongoing management charges and an estimate of transactional fees.  This has the advantage of being easy to understand, but it may favour short-term investors over long-term investors such as pension funds.

“We also welcome the focus on cost transparency with standardised disclosure - we believe this will help to drive down fund management costs.  

“The FCA also agrees with the Department of Work & Pensions (DWP) Green Paper proposal to remove barriers to pension scheme consolidation.  We believe that asset pooling in particular can help smaller clients and there are now a number of solutions, including fiduciary management, already in the market to achieve this.”  

Media Contact
For further information please contact:
Colin Mayes                                        Marina Jane-Sanchez
Aon Hewitt                                           CNC
01372 733689                                      07535 693 214
colin.mayes@aonhewitt.com                aonhewitt@cnc-communications.com
 

About Aon
Aon plc (NYSE:AON) is a leading global professional services firm providing a broad range of risk, retirement and health solutions. Our 50,000 colleagues in 120 countries empower results for clients by using proprietary data and analytics to deliver insights that reduce volatility and improve performance.
 

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