Financial Services

In today’s dynamic business environment, organisations face a multitude of economic challenges and opportunities. As a leading economic consultancy, we specialise in providing strategic guidance tailored to the financial sector.

We specialise in providing strategic guidance tailored to the financial sector

We have helped both public and private clients in critical areas within this sector such as insurance, payment systems, consumer credit, market analysis, and regulatory compliance. Below we provide a list of some of the work we have done in these areas:

Insurance

We examined the current state and anticipated future developments of distribution channels in various insurance products, including insurance-based investment products and motor insurance for the Italian National Association of Insurance Providers (ANIA).
We analysed the drivers of demand and supply for different distribution channels and considered the expected impact of IMD2 and emerging technology for AXA SA.

Payment Systems

Our work for Mastercard has involved critiquing the European Commission's impact assessment of proposed changes to interchange fees, assessing the impacts of different scenarios for interchange fees and assessing card and scheme separation proposals.
Some of our work for the Payment Service Regulator (PSR) has involved assessing the number of ATMs in the UK that might close following a fall in the interchange fee and several secondments working on the PSR’s key policy areas.

Financial Markets

For the World Gold Council, we analysed the relationship between gold price volatility and futures positions
We acted as personal advisors to the Citywire Financial Publishers providing an insight into quantitative easing.
We conducted an impact evaluation of the AIFMD on the private equity industry for Invest Europe.
For the Jersey Finance, we analysed the effectiveness and efficiency with which pensions and other institutional assets are managed.

Consumer Credit

We were commissioned by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) to assess the likely cost and market impacts of the transfer of the consumer credit regime to the FCA and a cost-benefit analysis s on the transfer of the regulation of consumer credit to the FCA from the OFT.
Several of our employees have been seconded to support the (FCA), with one of the commissions involving a credit card market study to assist the FCA gain a better understanding of the supply side of the credit card market.
For the Elevate Credit International Limited, we examined alternatives to the High-Cost Short-Term Credit markets.

Regulatory Compliance

Our work for the FCA in this area has ranged from a cost-benefit analysis of the FCA's implementation of MiFID to providing training courses on ‘Regulating for access to networks and facilities’.
Some of our work for European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) has included compliance cost analysis of the impact of ESMA's proposals related to the Market Abuse Regulation, Market Abuse Regulation data gathering and cost analysis, and an analysis of the Technical Standards ESMA had drafted with respect to the implementation of the Securities Financing Transactions Regulation.