'FCA survey shows advisers are still seen as untrustworthy by general public'

For those of you who have not yet perused this, it is a veritable tome of statistics, commissioned by the FCA to give them an insight into the financial lives of consumers. 

This is the third in a series, comparing the results gathered in May 2022 to previous years’ findings from 2020 and 2017.

The FCA is therefore building up an enormous amount of data, which, it hopes, will monitor trends in consumers’ attitudes to finance and financial services. 

One key area to zoom in on is consumers’ attitudes to financial advisers. 

The survey shows 8 per cent of adults had received financial advice in the previous 12 months. This figure is inching up slowly over time; up two percentage points since 2017.

If advice is such a positive thing, why don’t more people reach out and work with a financial adviser? 

Unsurprisingly, the proportion increases with wealth, and almost one in three (31 per cent) with investible assets of £100,000 or more had received financial advice. 

Where people get their financial advice is also interesting. Three-quarters of these people used a financial adviser. But the number receiving automated advice online increased eight-fold, although remaining at a relatively low 1.5 per cent of all adults. 

The FCA went on to ask these people receiving financial advice how much they trusted their adviser and how satisfied they were with them.

As you would expect the results are positive. 

As many as 87 per cent of people trusted their adviser and a similar figure (84 per cent) were satisfied with them. And 85 per cent were confident with the advice they had been given. 

These figures are a resounding positive for advice. Those people who work with financial advisers know and understand their worth, as well as the difference they are making to their financial lives. They trust them. And they trust the advice they are given.

So, if advice is such a positive thing, why don’t more people reach out and work with a financial adviser? 

The answer is that, although those working with financial advisers trust them and appreciate their worth, those that don’t are still wary of the benefits they bring. 

There is still some way to go until the wider general public see financial advisers as the trusted professionals they are.

The FCA identified that 28 per cent of all adults hadn’t received regulated advice in the last year but may need it as they had £10,000 or more in investible assets – or £10,000 or more in their defined contribution pension, and intended to access it or to retire in the next two years.

These people, however, were wary of the advice profession with only one in five agreeing that financial advisers are unbiased and less than half (45 per cent) believing financial advisers act in the best interests of their clients. 

This is worrying and shows that there is still some way to go until the wider general public see financial advisers as the trusted professionals they are.

That work is ongoing. Hopefully the next iteration of this survey will show more people viewing financial advisers in the same light and with the same high regard as their clients hold them in. 

Rachel Vahey is head of policy development at AJ Bell