And while the reputational damage should not all be laid at the feet of asset managers themselves, Williams does point out that the industry has not done enough to overtly demonstrate its value.
“The challenge for the industry is to demonstrate that we can behave with integrity and that is about being transparent about the way we invest people’s money and the way we charge for it.
And, importantly, he added, “other than the issues of trust, pricing and value, it is about finding ways to communicate complexity to the market in a way such that it is clearly understand it and it is a real challenge.”
These are indeed significant challenges, but they are challenges from which asset managers cannot shy away because it is clear from the data at the start that there is indeed a market out there, one that is receptive to change and one that is only going to get bigger.
