focus on training and development.” Indeed, the FSA has intimated that it
believes that professionalising the industry through the RDR and improving standards of qualifications will help to attract new talent into the market. “Qualifications and ongoing study form
part of the FSA’s plan to enhance the reputation of the retail investment market by instilling greater professionalism and ethics,” the regulator says. “Increasing customers’ trust and confidence in the sector is vital for its future.” But while the idea is right, there’s a hitch
says Tenet’s Richards. “The FSA would argue that in creating a
more professional reputation for financial services advice we will attract more people into the industry,” he says. “But there’s a flaw in the FSA’s thinking. It’s not creating opportunities for new people to
come into the industry, it’s doing the opposite.” Richards believes that by changing the
way brokers and IFAs are remunerated and putting up the requirements for necessary qualifications, the FSA is making it far more expensive and much harder to attract people into firms. “It’s a fundamental flaw but the FSA
don’t see it as their responsibility,” he adds. Robert Sinclair also acknowledges the
point. “The FSA should be thinking about it
but it’s not currently part of its statutory objectives. The FSA needs to have a view of orderly markets, but not maintaining markets,” he explains. “The establishment of a Consumer Protection and Markets Agency could begin to address this issue. One half will clearly be about protecting
the consumer, but the other half has to be about developing and maintaining better and more efficient markets. Hopefully that will give regulators an opportunity to look more broadly at the market than they are currently.”
what weNt wroNg? The IFA and broker market demographics have been through a tough time in the past couple of decades and there is a general feeling that the industry hasn’t quite adjusted to the new regime. Peter Gwilliam, director at specialist
mortgage sector headhunter Virtus, says part of the problem is the industry’s image. “We are a media fuelled country and in
the eyes of the public bankers are now perceived as the monsters that caused the credit crunch and that’s been contagious. Unfortunately, that contagion
mortgage Introducer SEPTEMBER 2010 23
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