Last Wednesday afternoon, I travelled up to London with Nick, Andrew and Lizanne to attend the Gold Standard Awards 2012 at the House of Commons.
I was delighted to accept the Gold Standard for Independent Financial Advice on behalf of Informed Choice, the sixth time we have received this prestigious award.
Every award we win is important.
In our 18 years in business, we have received our fair share of industry awards, including IFA of the Year and Best IFA Firm.
For a family owned and managed firm in Surrey, there is something immensely satisfying about winning national awards when in competition with much larger businesses.
The Gold Standard Awards in particular are very important to us.
Of all of the awards we have entered (and won) over the years, we have no doubts that the Gold Standards are the toughest.
The entry process requires we not only complete a detailed questionnaire but also supply a great deal of supporting evidence to back up our answers to each question.
The judging process is very tough, as the judging panel assesses each business against the key areas of financial strength, capability to conduct business, service standards, fair value and trust. These are the areas our clients tell us matter most to them.
It was great to see a total of nine firms achieve the Gold Standard for Independent Financial Advice this year. It was also telling that a number of firms that have achieved the Gold Standard in previous years, failed to do so in 2012.
Winning the Gold Standard for Independent Financial Advice requires that we continually improve our business, as there is never any resting on our laurels in the hope we will reach the required standard again.
We have already started planning for business improvements in 2013 that will give us the best possible chance of achieving the Gold Standard for a seventh time. Winning the Gold Standard is a great way to demonstrate we are doing the right things for our clients.
The Gold Standard Awards are particularly important right now for a couple of reasons.
There is no doubt that the financial services sector has experienced a damaged collective reputation. The banking sector in particular has had a terrible decade, playing their role in the global financial crisis and frequently selling inappropriate products to customers.
Whilst this is not the same part of the sector in which we operate as a firm of Chartered Financial Planners, many consumers view financial services as a single entity, finding it hard to differentiate between the ‘bad’ banks and ‘good’ financial advisers.
We are also due to experience a great deal of change in the retail financial services sector, at the end of next month.
The implementation of the Retail Distribution Review (RDR) will introduce a great deal of transparency and higher standards to the relationship between financial advisers and their clients.
This will also create a period of disruption, as many clients recognise they have been paying significant sums of money to their advisers for very little value in return.
Transparency of remuneration will force some tough discussions between IFAs who have been reliant on commissions and their clients who have never had the cost of advice properly explained.
Where the Gold Standard Awards are so important is to demonstrate that some IFA firms strive to go above and beyond the minimum standard when it comes to the important elements of service, fair value and trust.
Our experience at the House of Commons last week suggests that consumers of retail financial services have reasons to be cheerful as more firms are working hard to improve what they do and aim to continually improve, with excellence as their own minimum standard.
We look forward to entering the Gold Standard Awards again in 2013 and putting our business once more to the toughest test.
