Confidence currently stands at 5.8 out of 10, slightly less than the six out of 10 recorded in the last quarter.
The survey also found that financial advisers had lost confidence in the Chinese economy. Europe also saw a sharp drop in confidence and the UK was the only place where advisers remained confident. The biggest drop in confidence was among advisers in the United Arab Emirates.
The UK was also the only place to report an increase in confidence in the local economy.
When asked why the levels of confidence in the UK had stayed the same, Duncan Glassey, partner of Edinburgh-based Wealthflow, said: “I think it’s a combination of two factors. The first is that UK residents have been cosseted by the UK government’s insistence that all is well when, in reality, we are hostages to low government borrowing rates.
“Should these rise, the UK government will be squeezed like never before. Only then will the severest of cuts kick in – potentially the end of the NHS as we know it. Second, we Brits are philosophical by nature. When faced with difficulty we expect to pull through.”
Statistics:
5.9 – advisers in the UK who felt confident, the same figure for the previous quarter
5.8 – out of 10 advisers in the UAE who felt confident, down from 7.1
5.8 – out of 10 advisers who felt confident in local economy, a rise from the 5.2
