Phew!!!

Phew thats OK then - thanks Peter & Chris!

Posted by: John Doe

Principal

Ah, so it's our fault is it. Well thanks for that Peter, a pity you didn't mention that when you were with Bankhall 'protecting' our interests. I think you'll find that what we wanted bears absolutely no relation to what the FSA now propose. This is the point that IFA's need to get across to the FSA - Give us more time to adjust to such a wide ranging set of changes and please stop regulating us by the lowest common denominator.

Posted by: Nick

Who's he kidding

When I became sickened of working as a tied agent for a large assurance company I decided to become an independent advisor, why because I no longer had to sell the rubbish foisted on to the companies sales force and then onto an unsuspecting public. I relished the freedom to choose the correct policy, pension scheme or investment for my clients, I was and had become a professional and independent life assurance salesman. To work on a commission basis is fair to the public most of whom can neither afford or want to pay for financial advice, it forces the cost on to the main benefactors of the life and investment business, the product providers. RDR will not resolve the main issue of poor quality product foisted on the public by the big providers whose cheerfull salemen and women will continue to plug their employers product in blissful ignorance and with out the nuisance of all that competition from independent financial advisors working for commission only. Ask the Great British public to pay a fee and 95% will say no because they can hardly afford to pay the bills and taxes already demanded of them, they will go for the supposedly cheaper option offered by the banks Professor Gower made the point that the problem was not with the way advice was provided or the way the product was sold but with the product its’ self. Ask a sales force to sell rubbish it will sell rubbish ask it to sell quality it will sell quality. Ask the public to pay a fee and most will say no. If commission paid to IFA;s is such a problem a standard table of commission applied to all product providers would surely have been a better option than simply destroying the bulk of the IFA sector. And in answer to the original claim no I did not ask for RDR.

Posted by: Mervyn Scourfield Thomas

Sycophants cost jobs!

A sycophant is a person praising people in authority, usually in order to get some advantage from them! Sycophants will cost 10,000 IFA jobs!

Posted by: Richard Roe

IFA

Once again someone offering to be my 'spokesman' without asking me. Plenty of them around. All self interested of course. None of them IFAs either. Now what about asking me then? Strangely you are uninterested why am I not surprised? But why is my association not interested either? Why would I suggest something like what is being proposed in the RDR when ALL my clients are happy with what and how I do things?In fact they are worried that I will quit. Don't get me wrong I don't really mind who pays me but I would certainly mind not being paid at all. So comment on what you know about Mann and stop trying to influence things you do not either understand or want to understand. To all others please read this then sign the petition.

Posted by: Roddy McKenzie

Bite the dust

Not only will IFAs be destroyed, firms like Skandia will be stocking up with cardboard boxes...

Posted by: Ken Durkin