Blog: Cummings departs when IFAs need him most

Chris Cummings' decision to step down as AIFA director general two years before the RDR deadline creates further uncertainty for an industry desperate for stability.

Cummings' departure has taken the industry by complete surprise.

Even Amanda Davidson, who worked with Cummings for years until this April as deputy chair of AIFA, answered the call to comment on his exit with utter disbelief.

He will leave in August to front TheCityUKA, a new independent body to "promote the UK financial and related professional services industry".

Much of the industry's shock at his departure will stem from Cummings' decision to go before the job of transitioning IFAs to meet RDR standards is finished.

Cummings deserves praise for fighting pitched battles with the Financial Services Compensation Scheme over adviser fees and levies.

He also campaigned hard for alternative assessments for advisers who would have been left behind if the only way to get to Level 4 post RDR was by taking written exams.

However, AIFA members, like all advisers, are now at the crucial 30-month point before the 31 December 2012 RDR deadline.

Many industry experts have said this deadline will be tight for existing advisers to overhaul their business model, and get qualified up to the new minimum Level 4.

On top of that, last night the new Government announced plans for a total shake-up of financial services regulation to conclude in 2012, coinciding with the RDR deadline.

The FSA will be dismantled over the next two years and control over adviser firms  passed to the independent Consumer Protection and Markets Authority.

Who will fight to ensure advisers' voices are heard with this new regulator at a make or break time for many advisory businesses?

The end of this year when Cummings plans to leave will be the time IFAs, especially late-adopters of the RDR, will most need strong leadership and the security which comes with continuity of purpose and personality.

For the next few months as time runs out for advisers, Cummings will have to steer increasingly fraught IFAs through the new Government's regulatory upheavals, and the return of the FSA's controversial chief executive Hector Sants.

So far, no favourite to replace Cummings has come forward.

But circling successors eager for the fame and potential glory of leadership will have to come prepared for a huge job managing the last two years of the old advice regime and the infant days of the brave new model world.

Maybe it is fitting Cummings' sudden exit follows Gordon Brown's - the departure of the man who created the FSA followed by the man who has spent the last five years locking horns with it.

Swiftly followed by the FSA itself.