A festive tale of advice and regulation

With apologies to John Lennon, the Christmas period is often a time for festivities, frollicking, feeding and to reflect on the year that has been and the one that will shortly begin.

So what have we learnt from 2018 and how can we apply that to 2019?

Perhaps the biggest story of the year for the adviser community was one that reflected both the best and worst aspects of the profession: the British Steel Pension Scheme debacle.

It highlighted the worst, because it made the whole country aware of those unscrupulous individuals who make up the minority of the financial advice community, but whose actions unfortunately have an outsized impact on how it is perceived.

If you want to know what happens when standards are not enforced and the public loses confidence in your profession, ask a journalist.

So yes, on the one hand there were advisers who preyed upon steelworkers who had to make an incredibly difficult choice in a very short period of time.

But on the other hand, there were the many advisers who took time out of their lives to help these people and who campaigned on their behalf – ably led by Alastair Rush.

Perhaps one of the tragedies of the British Steel fiasco – if we set aside briefly the people who faced such anguish over their retirement incomes – has been that the first group of advisers ended up becoming much more prominent than the second.

But this also highlights the wider challenges the advice community faces: those from without and those from within.

The latter includes those often beloved pantomime villains of the Financial Conduct Authority, the Financial Services Compensation Scheme and the Financial Ombudsman Service.

It is true these organisations are capable of bizarre decisions – just like any organisation – but advisers should be careful what they wish for: the standards they enforce give consumers more confidence.

If you want to know what happens when standards are not enforced and the public loses confidence in your profession, ask a journalist.

The enemy within are those advisers whose actions force the hand of regulators by highlighting the worst elements in the advice profession. Perhaps more focus should be placed here in 2019.

Hopefully this was not too mournful a note to end the year on, but we hope you enjoy the festive season. Merry Christmas, and we will see you in the New Year.

damian.fantato@ft.com