The Financial Services Authority (FSA) has started to publicise changes to the way investors receive advice from the end of next year.
The changes, as part of the FSA Retail Distribution Review (RDR) initiative, come into force on 31st December 2012.
In their explanation of what these changes mean, the FSA describe three things which are changing:
-Advisers tell you how much their services cost and agree with you how much you will pay.
-Advisers who offer you independent advice must consider all relevant options for you and do so free from any restrictions (such as working with only a select group of product providers) or bias (such as being paid by commission). This makes sure that the advice offered to you is truly independent and, if it is not, the adviser must clearly explain to you why not.
-You will receive advice from competent, trained professionals who subscribe to a code of ethics ensuring they act with integrity and treat their customers fairly
Here at Informed Choice we believe that these are important and valuable changes which will benefit our clients.
So important and valuable in fact that we decided not to wait until the end of next year to bring these changes into force.
We made our move to this way of providing investment advice all the way back in 2004, before the Retail Distribution Review was an apple in the regulators’ eye.
Some of our peers will no doubt want to wait until the last possible moment before complying with these important regulatory changes. That is not the Informed Choice way.
Photo credit: Flickr/Yoshimai
