Over the last few years I have grown attached to the high tech Finovate conference and it is a pity I cannot attend this year due to a recent operation, as I genuinely believe that financial planning in the UK can benefit from the use of technology.
The FCA certainly seems to agree with my analysis as they appear to be pinning the future of ‘simplified advice’ on technology. Luckily several banks now appear to be reassessing their financial advice activities and I am optimistic that some will re-enter the market. We certainly need organisations that can service the mass market, although clearly they will need to avoid the errors of the past.
At last year’s Finovate I mentioned how pleased I was to see Money on Toast presenting.
While I acknowledged that their system had had teething problems I did think that it offered huge potential and I was therefore not surprised to recently hear that the Lighthouse Group was using Money on Toast on a limited basis for Isas and simple investment products. It is good to see advisory firms entering this space.
While I am physically unable to attend Finovate 2015 I will, post event, have access to the presentations and indeed many of those presenting and exhibiting have already been in contact with me.
As in previous years, most of the firms presenting are from overseas and virtually all are focused on banking, with ‘internet security’ being a common theme. Obviously simplicity for the end user is also critical and everyone hopes to find the magic formula that makes their application the winner. I hope to take a look at individual Finovate presentations next month, but for now I want to concentrate on another aspect of security that affects us all – trust.
For clients trust is core. Look at any survey of why financial advisers and planners are used, at the top end of the list is almost always trust and confidence. It is therefore vital that we adhere to strong ethical standards – hence the emphasis of these in the FCA rules and the need for all of us to be a member of a professional body and to abide by its code of conduct.
Of course it is easy to sign up to a code of conduct but how can we be sure people keep to it? For example, consider The Personal Finance Society (and its parent body, The Chartered Insurance Institute). Now what I am about to say is not an attack on the PFS or CII. Far from it, they are my professional body but with over 35,000 financial planning members in the UK they are by far the largest professional body in our sector. Every two months I receive a copy of the society’s FS magazine. A regular feature is ‘Disciplinary Matters’ which details CII and PFS members who have breached the CII/PFS code of conduct or the examination and/or assessment regulations.
The most common entry relates to plagiarism as a number of examination units have a continuance assessment component and candidates have been caught sharing answers. This is a common problem across the entire educational sector. As both a former CII and a former university examiner I have experience of marking papers and it is relatively easy to spot plagiarism where you are the sole examiner in that subject – all large educational bodies have access to sophisticated software that can help identify cases of cheating. This is especially important in the university sector where similar courses are offered in a variety of different establishments and unfortunately it is all too easy to buy model answers through the internet.
Of course we all recognise the desire to succeed and I am sure we can all sympathise with students who are fearful of failure – I know, I have been there. But let us be honest, if you can only pass by cheating what does that really say about you? If someone is so dishonest as to cheat in an exam how more reliable will they be when dealing with clients?
Dishonesty is one of the biggest worries facing any business that takes on staff – especially financial services businesses where trust and client confidence go hand in hand. The IFA business where I am a non-executive director is currently looking to recruit new firms and new advisers. As an independent and chartered business we need to ensure that we only recruit the best – and that means honestly, the best.
Dr Peter Williams is a chartered financial planner and independent business consultant
