Blog: Is a visit from Sants really a Fool of an idea?

On our sister site IFAonline.co.uk we like to try and wrongfoot our readers once a year with an April Fool story.

Last year, some IFAs were fooled by our story that restricted and independent advisers would have to wear different coloured jumpers post-RDR so consumers could tell them apart.

This year, we suggested FSA chief executive Hector Sants and financial secretary to the Treasury Mark Hoban had offered to spend a day at an IFA firm in a bid to better understand the advice sector.

Some advisers were taken in, despite the fictitious firm’s name being Money Honey run by an Ian Seal.

We wrote that Sants will probably visit a handful of the company’s existing clients and sit in on a meeting about Money Honey’s terms of business contracts. Meanwhile, Hoban would probably make the tea and do some filing.

One adviser said he knew the game was up when it was suggested Hoban could make a successful cup of tea while others said Sants’ daily pay rate could work out pretty expensive for Money Honey.

While we were just having a bit of fun with the story, the sad thing is such a scenario might actually be a pretty good idea, but seems extremely unlikely to ever be any more than an April Fool.

Sants and Hoban have both been in the firing line for appearing to lack understanding of advisers and failing to appreciate the extent of their concerns as the RDR looms ever closer.

The FSA chief’s comments about a 20% loss of advisers as a result of the RDR being “acceptable” ensured he was placed even further down advisers’ blacklists.
Their attitude appears unlikely to change so maybe a day at a firm seeing the day-to-day help advisers give their clients may lead to a softening of their views.

Informed Choice’s Nick Bamford has even said he would be happy for them to spend a day at his firm if it would help the cause.

With so many of the FSA’s management figures coming from banking, accountancy or law backgrounds, an understanding of what it is like to be an adviser on the ground is clearly lacking.

It would be great if we could write this story for real, describing how the previously fictional visit had actually happened and Sants and Co had left Canary Wharf to get first-hand experience of how the rules they are introducing will impact advisers in practice.

Katrina Baugh is editor of Professional Adviser and IFAonline.co.uk