Help! Our son is using his student loans to party + MORE Aug 18th

FINTRAC director Gerald Cossette says it’s important for the federal government to encourage innovation by emerging financial technology companies

Canada’s national housing agency gave Maple Bank GmbH’s Canadian branch the green light during a financial review, just one month before the federal banking watchdog seized the company’s assets amid a German tax investigation, documents show.

NEW YORK, N.Y. – Gawker.com, a nearly 14-year-old blog being shut down following the sale of its parent company to Spanish-language broadcaster Univision, will mark its last post Monday. In a memo to its staff, Gawker founder Nick Denton, the acerbic, outspoken former financial journalist, said he’s also getting out of the news business. The blog’s parent, Gawker Media, was sold following a $140 million judgment against it in an invasion-of-privacy lawsuit filed by former professional wrestler Hulk Hogan over a sex tape. It was later revealed that Hogan’s lawsuit was backed by Silicon Valley investor Peter Thiel. Excerpts of the memo, which was sent to The Associated Press, are below.
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Sadly, neither I nor Gawker.com, the buccaneering flagship of the group I built with my colleagues, are coming along for this next stage. Desirable though the other properties are, we have not been able to find a single media company or investor willing also to take on Gawker.com…

In July, investors saw the roll out of the final phase of CRM2, a new set of rules intended to bring greater transparency to investors on how much their advisors are taking and making off their client’s wealth. This means advisors are under greater pressure than ever to justify their fees to clients.
The changes come at a pretty good time: A new J.D. Power survey finds that just 27% of investors say they have complete understanding of their fees. That’s down from 30% in 2012. The survey was conducted in May and June, before the final rollout of CRM2, so we’ll have to wait to see if fee comprehension increases.
While 54% of investors indicated that their advisors helped them set goals and discussed risk, only 34% felt they were actually effective in implementing strategies to meet goals and monitoring progress. Ouch.
“These results don’t speak well for the industry as a whole,” said Mike Foy, director of wealth management practice at J.D. Power, in a press release. “Advisors who aren’t adding value for their clients beyond asset allocation may be in real trouble…

Q: We pay for all our son’s university expenses and just found out that he took out student loans to party. What should we do?
.cbR{box-sizing:border-box;display:block;width:100%;margin:1em 0;border:1px solid #bbb;padding:.5em}@media (min-width:480px){.cbR{width:250px;margin:0 0 1em 1em;float:right}}Defaulting on a student loan
—Angry in Airdrie, Alta.
A: Your son’s sense of entitlement needs to be nipped in the bud, pronto! Otherwise, he’ll be in for a lot of financial hardship in the future, says Toronto-based financial planner Heather Franklin. You need to sit him down and show him how many thousands you’re already paying for his education. And one message should be very clear: Starting now, you’ll only be paying for tuition and books— and that’s all. “He needs to know he will be expected to pay back his student loans on his own,” says Franklin.
Bear in mind that behaviour like this could have been avoided with a bit of financial literacy, something that unfortunately is rarely taught in schools…