Steve Thomas, chartered financial planner for Surrey-based IFA The Eurofinance Partnership, said he had given notice to Sesame after it confirmed it would adopt a restricted advisory proposition. He will instead become directly authorised and use sister company Bankhall’s back-office systems.
He said: “For a network member like myself, Sesame has been easing the transition and, to be fair, has been very supportive. Its view is that the firm would rather retain me as a Bankhall member than lose me completely.
“I’ve been thinking about it for a while. Some 93 per cent of my business is pension related with many at the top end of the scale regarding lifetime allowances.
“That means we have to look at enterprise investment schemes and venture capital trusts, at the margins, and you can’t do that if you are restricted.”
Last week Stephen Gazard, managing director of Sesame Bankhall Group, said the network would not be “an appropriate home” for “non-mainstream” advisers.
Speaking at Sesame’s yearly symposium in London, he said: “The potential future cost base required to deliver the appropriate systems and controls environment would not be acceptable to us, you and ultimately the consumer.”
John Cowan, chairman of the group, urged advisers to focus on what customers were interested in, rather than the restricted versus independent debate, which he warned was becoming “internalised and sterile”.
