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Outgoing AIFA director general Chris Cummings has lambasted in-fighting as the industry’s “weakness”.
Cummings, director general of the trade body since 2005, quit in June to become the first chief executive of TheCityUK.
While he believes the independent advice sector will “come into its own” post RDR, he says the industry continues to be held back by internal conflict.
“I always thought in-fighting was a great shame, a weakness,” he told Professional Adviser, IFAonline's print title.
“I remember sitting in a room with one certified and one chartered adviser. But rather than talk about how the world of advice could be improved, there was too much focus on which, of certified or chartered, is better.
“If a consumer had been sat in the room, they would not have known what they were talking about. People should be rallying around the advice flag.”
During Cummings’ five-year tenure as AIFA director general, membership of the association as a percentage of IFAs has risen from 60% to 85%.
He says his focus was always on having a regular dialogue with the FSA, but also on “raising the game” beyond the regulator to Westminster and, later, Brussels.
“I was fortunate to get the job just at the time of de-polarisation,” he says. “There was uncertainty around multi-ties and the industry was really at loggerheads about how it should all come together.
“IFAs had come a long way in the years before I joined AIFA, but advisers were still tarred with a poor reputation. A lot of policymakers did not understand what an IFA was, so we were very focused on dealing with the FSA and the Treasury. But it was also essential we gained influence at a European level.”
Cummings says he is a “keen advocate” of the RDR but fears it has lost sight of its central objective: to increase consumer access to advice.
“We were very happy to support it. People could not see a reason to save, or to visit an IFA, and the RDR was about turning that around.
“It has been successful in driving up standards and changing the way advisers are remunerated but, to me, the regulatory tragedy of all this is that the goal of helping more people has somehow completely dropped off the list.”
Cummings is set to leave AIFA next Thursday 9 September and will start his new role on 13 September.
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Lip Service
RDR was always going to be detrimental to consumer access to advice and I assumed that those who supported the RDR were just paying lip service, when they mentioned it as a goal. Perhaps we need to be making the next plan ourselves and put it forward to the FSA? If a job's worth doing...
Posted by: Mark Green
Infighting
There is infighting in every profession and industry. It is just that some are represented by skilled people who are able to see beyond that and present the common ground in a compelling fashion to regulator and Government alike.
Posted by: Nick Bamford
Common ground Nick?
Where is this common ground? The blogs are covered opinions including yours and they are different. The only common ground is that there isn't any!
Posted by: Evan Owen
Best of Luck to All
The best of luck to Chris Cummings in his new job. I think that he has done a good job in what is a difficult industry pulled between the salesmen and the advisors, those who have no qualifications but do a good job and those who see qualifications as the 'b' all and end all of life. He is right when he talks about the infighting, we have never spoken with one voice and are unlikely to in the future. Not until all the past baggage has gone and we have a complete new breed of advisors (be they good or bad) will the industry speak with one voice. Too many vested interests! As someone has already said, you only need to read the blogs to see this.
Posted by: Bob Donaldson
IFAs have a common ground
Nick is right, Evan is wrong. There is common ground. The common ground is pure, unadulterated independence. The infighting mainly occurs when this is put to one side and to my huge regret this seems to have happened recently with the official defence of what is euphemistically called Restricted Advice. There IS only one type of advice – Independent – the rest is selling. That is our common ground and I do hope we have the gumption to stick with it.
Posted by: Harry Katz
Interfering, self-opinionated people!
Just about every blog and newspaper seems to have an opinion by the same people! Do they ever work? Know what I mean Harry!
Posted by: Bob West
Infighting?
Harry Katz is spot on when he says there is independent advice and the rest is selling. Mind you is it any wonder there is so much infighting in this profession when most people are product floggers and have anything but a decent education? I've noticed that education tends to calm the ego. What Chris might have been implying is that there are just too many egos out there.
Posted by: Harry
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Many a slip....
....between cup and lip? "the RDR was about turning that around" Would anyone be forgiven for thinking that they ran rings round you Chris??
Posted by: Evan Owen