Company name:

AJ Bell

PR team Twitter handle:

@ajbell

Team members & job titles:

Mike Glenister, Head of PR – mike.glenister@ajbell.co.uk, 07719 554575
Jack Pattinson, PR Executive - jack.pattinson@ajbell.co.uk, 07525 277170
Laura Suter, Head of Personal Finance – laura.suter@ajbell.co.uk, 07912 280844
Tom Selby, Head of Retirement Policy – tom.selby@ajbell.co.uk, 07702 858234
Danni Hewson, Head of Financial Analysis – danni.hewson@ajbell.co.uk, 07593 451437
Russ Mould, Investment Director – russ.mould@ajbell.co.uk, 07710 356331
Rachel Vahey, Head of Policy Development – rachel.vahey@ajbell.co.uk, 07803 624146
Laith Khalaf, Head of Investment Analysis – laith.khalaf@ajbell.co.uk, 07936 963267
Ryan Hughes – Investments Director

What’s the best way to get in contact with your team?

Usually directly via email or by giving one of us a buzz!

What are your specialist areas of comment?

Personal finance, ISAs, pensions, markets, business, investing, financial regulation, taxes, economic conditions and women’s finances.

How long does it take you to turn around requests?

You’ll normally get a response from us within 10-15 minutes to confirm whether we’re able to help with the query and most questions can be answered within a few hours depending on how complex they are. If there is a deadline, we’ll always hit it.

What kind of resources do you have at your disposal? (e.g. spokespeople, case studies etc)

• Spokespeople who are able to cover most topics and are available for broadcast appearances, calculations, explainers, analysis and comment – can be approached directly or via Mike or Jack
• Our spokespeople are able to dial in from home using methods including Skype, Zoom, Teams, FaceTime and IPDTL (Comrex), meaning they can be available for interview from home within minutes of breaking news stories
• They are also based across London, Manchester, Bristol and Leeds, and are happy to travel for interview if required
• List of over 1,000 customer case studies who are often willing to speak about any financial topic
• Huge customer database which allows us to pull and analyse investment data over a specific time period, patterns in customer investing and demographic data to bring a story idea to life
• We also produce two podcasts, which you can find wherever you get your podcasts:
  • Money & Markets – looking at the latest personal finance and stock market news, with analysis from our team of spokespeople
  • Money Matters – part of the wider AJ Bell Money Matters initiative to help women to engage with their finances, with regular guests including celebrities, public figures and businesspeople

Tell us about your latest press campaign (include links, etc):

‘One ISA’ campaign for the simplification of ISAs – you can find a link to this here.

AJ Bell recently set out its five key priorities for the Chancellor prior to the Autumn Statement, calling for ISA simplification; a focus on the advice/guidance boundary; doubling of the personal savings allowance; clarity on the taxation of death benefits under the new pension rules to replace the LTA; and ending the Lifetime ISA early exit penalty – more on this here.

Calls for the personal savings allowance to be doubled have been laid out alongside detailed analysis of HMRC figures and FOI requests, where we uncover that HMRC expects one million more people to pay tax on their savings interest as a result of high interest rates.

In an effort to help consumers track down their lost pensions, AJ Bell recently launched a pension finder tool alongside some analysis of how much money people could be saving by consolidating their ‘lost’ pensions.

Any upcoming events for the financial press in the next few months?

We have spokespeople available for comment, analysis and broadcast on the Autumn Statement (22^nd November), as well as beyond that.

We offer teach-in sessions for anyone who wants to know more about investments, tax, regulation or the specifics of a product. If you’re an editor and are interested in someone in your team learning more about a topic they’re covering, let us know and we’ll arrange it with them.

Our annual investment conference, Investival, is being held on Thursday 23^rd November at London’s Shaw Theatre. Let us know if you’re interested in going and we can stick your name on the list!

https://www.investcentre.co.uk/support/events/investival

And finally, anything else you would like to bring to the attention of financial journalists?

Our Money Matters initiative, run by a team of women from across the business, seeks to help solve the gender investment gap in the UK. You can find more information about what Money Matters does and its latest research here.

We release a monthly ‘Regulatory outlook’ at the beginning of each month, which diarises and comments on any regulatory changes for the coming month.

At the end of each week, we preview three big stories coming up in the week ahead, ranging from company results to economic data to central bank policy decisions.

The FCA and Treasury are currently reviewing the advice/guidance boundary as part of efforts to improve the help providers can make available to their customers – currently providers are limited in what they can communicate if it appears to resemble financial advice. A policy paper is expected to be published this year, potentially as soon as the Autumn Statement, proposing reforms to this boundary. We believe simplification to existing products, including ISAs, should also be on the table, and that Consumer Duty is a good platform to implement these changes. You can read our comment on this in our Autumn Statement preview.