Today goes down in history as the day everything changes in UK’s retail financial services!
Dinosaur insurers and providers are stripped of their power! It’s a brave new world. That unhealthy umbilical cord between advisers and providers is BROKEN!
The balance of power shifts in favour of advisers. Providers will no longer write the cheques! For the most part, they’ll be order-takers, doing advisers’ bidding!
No doubt, there’s pain ahead for advisers. Some providers will do whatever they can to stay in charge of your business. From imposing decency limits on your fees to asking for 100 different wet signatures for each client in order to facilitate adviser charging.
And those massive legacy books need sorting out too. The dreaded ‘fee talk’ with clients needs to happen sooner rather than later! It will be tearful, for most. But doing nothing is not an option. Do nothing and before you know it, providers will turn off your trail income. You will watch helplessly as your bread and butter disappears before your own very eyes! So don’t wait. It’ll take several attempts before you finally perfect your ‘fee pitch’ but you will. Start now and it’ll only get easier.
Ignore the naysayers; those prophets and prophetesses of doom. Whatever RDR brings, the majority of adviser specie will survive, and some will even thrive.
Those who thrive won’t be those who get everything right from the word go necessarily. It’ll be those who are willing to learn, unlearn, improve and adapt.
Remember this RDR advice from a certain 19th century scientist? He saw this day coming and wrote these words specifically with you in mind…
It is not the strongest of the adviser species that survives, nor the most intelligent. It is the one that is most adaptable to change.
In the struggle for survival, the fittest adviser win out at the expense of their rivals because they succeed in adapting themselves best to their Post-RDR environment
Oh… and my new RDR year’s wish? An industry watchdog that can actually bite, rather than just bark! I hope those men and women in the shiny offices of Canary Wharf will speak in the language people understand. I hope they sort out the bottomless pit of FSCS. Yeah…, I said it’s a wish!
To those wolves in sheep’s clothing, who dress up the old crap in a new name; same old 5% (or is it 3%?) commission dressed up as a fee proposition, I hope you get caught and punished, by consumers and by the regulator!
Now, to all the good guys and girls, raise your glass to a prosperous New RDR Year ahead!
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