We learn that, faced with the true cost of obtaining financial advice, those who need it most prefer to rely on their own DIY effort, while simultaneously the number of practising IFAs is in steep retreat, accelerating the drift to financial hardship for millions.
Traditionally, IFAs have been vocationally driven, doing their best to safeguard their reputations by financially engineering the best for their clients. If things went wrong the IFA was the first to call upon for redress and professional indemnity insurance underpinned the responsibility to put matters right.
Now that DIY financial planning is set to become the norm and the people embracing it are the least qualified to do so, we may expect mounting volumes of people who have constructively organised their own financial downfall and are looking for compensation. Who are they to turn to? The regulator, of course. It is the body that has taken over the role of knowledgeable deliberation of which products in the marketplace are suitable for answering which needs.
The regulator may deny such a role but, given that it regulates specifically to provide consumer protection, it cannot refuse the role without bringing the whole regulation into contempt, especially now that it is moving, by default, into the front line.
Philip Binding
Binding & Williams Associates
Winscombe
Somerset
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