New professional standards to be introduced for Financial Advisors

PRLog (Press Release) - Aug. 14, 2012 - Set to be introduced on the 1st January 2013, the Financial Services Authority will introduced a Retail Distribution Review (RDR) – a new set of professional standards for the Financial Advice profession.

The RDR will bring about a number of wholesale changes which will help to ensure that consumers receive the best and most accurate advice that they can from any financial advisors. There are three key areas of change that we will be focusing on and these include:

Qualifications

Qualifications will now become an important part of any financial advise and this advise must be presented by a competent person who has been qualified by examination to QCA level 4 in Financial Services. For the last four years, we have been Chartered Financial Planners reaching a QCA level 6 in a variety of areas including Pensions, Taxation and Trusts.

Working on a fee only basis

From the 1st of January 2013 commission will no longer be allowed for financial advice. As a company we have long worked on a fee basis, but in the annuities market it is often advantageous for the cost to be paid for from the annuity, given the small incremental gains made from a higher annuity purchase amount failing to offset a significant initial fee for some years. As a business we will continue to give clients the choice of paying from the product of directly when the new rules are brought in.

Independence

The introduction of the RDR means that we will see a change to the term "independent" within the IFA. In a broad manner, currently advisers are independent if they choose products from the whole of the relevant market but this will change in January. The implementation of a Restricted Advisor label will be introduced for companies who aren't independent and this will generally cover businesses who are not Whole of Market advisors or who choose to stick with a restricted part of the market.

Throughout the services that we have provided, Philip Bates & Co Financial Services (http://www.theannuityspecialist.com/) have been proud to provide a high level of customer service and satisfaction. In line with these changes we have committed to remaining Independent and IFA – being able to offer advise from the Whole of Market to suit our clients’ needs.