Blog: AIFA’s options were restricted. Now back it.

AIFA needs money. Your money. It won’t admit that so I’m telling you instead. New director general Stephen Gay has ambitious plans for the organisation – really he does – but AIFA is in somewhat of a financial straitjacket.

It is accused of failing to represent the interests of the wider IFA community but, without the cash it needs, it is limited in what it can do to turn that perception around.

So it was both a brave and necessary call this week to reveal the organisation would begin accepting ‘restricted’ advisers – those who offer advice on a limited range of products or providers – as members.

Necessary because the organisation would in no way benefit from limiting itself to a group of practitioners (IFAs) whose number will inevitably shrink after 2012.

Brave because it risks alienating the very bunch of advisers it was set up to represent almost 12 years ago.

It has gone some way (it hopes) to allaying IFAs’ fears about the future direction of the organisation by revealing the new AIFA (although it will no longer be called that) will have a “college-based” structure: an IFA college and a restricted college.

Representatives from each college, plus those from the Association of Mortgage Intermediaries, will decide on policy based on the interests of their respective communities.

If they cannot find common ground on certain issues, separate viewpoints can exist for each college.

AIFA has recognised that all advisers, bar the single-ties, are in a position to offer their clients a professional service – without conflicts of interest and for the benefit of clients – because they can offer choice.

It feels its influence would be limited if it only represented one faction of the advisory community, particularly as Europe begins to have a bigger say on regulatory operations in the UK. In Europe, the reputation of ‘independence’ and what it represents is not as strong as it is in Britain.

AIFA has done a brave and smart thing in opening up membership to more advisers. All it (hopefully) needs is your backing and it can, again, be the organisation to best represent your interests.

Scott Sinclair is deputy editor of Professional Adviser and IFAonline.co.uk