26th May 2011
Yesterday’s news, tomorrow’s U turn?
The Financial Adviser edition of 4th March 2010 alerted readers to a then quite astonishing admission by the FSA’s then Head of Investment Policy Peter Smith.
It reported that when speaking at a Chartered Institute for Securities and Investment Private Wealth Management Conference in London, he spoke about the potential for consumers rejecting the big idea about adviser charging and confessed, "If consumers still do not want to engage with it then we probably will have to do something else.”
This really beggars belief. The various discussion and consultation documents have thrown up numerous proposals, many of which have been dropped, reformed or deformed and it is absolutely clear that much RDR directional thinking has been navigation at sea with only a world atlas to chart the way- something that will give a general idea of what landmass is where but zero detail about the hazards presented by the ocean the vessel is travelling on.
This may be acceptable behaviour in regulation-world but let’s not forget that it is the advisers and consumers whose boats could be heading for the rocks
It was clear in 2010 that the regulator failed to understand the psychology of adviser/client interaction. In 2011 it is the same but it has no intention of listening to the responses from experienced industry navigation professionals, providers, lawyers, MPs, trade bodies and of course advisers.
Not content with being the body that was asleep at the helm when Northern Rock slammed into the rocks followed by the rest of the UK banking “Armada” it seems the FSA also wants to be remembered as the quango responsble for the decimation of retail financial services.
With all this in mind, perhaps we should look back to 17th June 1999 and the Commons 1st reading of the FSMA 2000 bill and ask the question, why does nobody in regulation ever learn from it’s past mistakes. The transcript of this debate from 1999, reproduced via this link and kindly researched by Derek Bull where highlighted in red, flags so many issues of concern that were expressed then with the seemingly strange phenomenon of foresight!
Nobody listened then and I am reminded of the quote from the late Bob Monkhouse when thinking about the impact of poorly thought out regulation upon the consumer of tomorrow - “They laughed when I said I was going to be a comedian. Well, they're not laughing now”.
The industry is not laughing now, neither will the consumer on the 1st January 2013.
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