Monday 17th of September 2007

I ran into a guy at the airport the other day who holds (and has held other) significant senior management roles in the savings industry. We got talking about the state of affairs - as one seems to do these days - and the role of advisers, particularly with regards to Bridgecorp. Both of us agreed that advisers and the leadership of this sector have not done enough to sooth investor sentiment. As I wrote on the Weekly Wrap two Fridays ago, all advisers are coming under attack at the moment. While I believe this is unwarranted there is a need to front foot the issue. Bodies like the IFA - who pitch themselves and their members as the peak professional body representing advisers - have two broad tactics they could employ. One is bury their head in the sand. The second is get out there and stand up for advisers. I will leave it to readers to suggest which option has been taken, indeed it maybe somewhere in between. My challenge to the advisory industry is this. If their proposition to the public and one of the “unique-selling points” is that advice is good and the public should use the skills of someone who is professional, abides by a code of ethics and belongs to an organisation which has a complaints process then they should be out there and be saying, loudly, to the public if you have a complaint come to us and we will promise to investigate it. It's well and good saying to your members yes we have a complaints service and we have very few complaints. But if you don't let the investing public know it’s there and what it does then they won't use it. Perhaps the downside is that an organisation could end up losing members and end up in a weaker bargaining position when adviser regulation comes into play. But, hey, if you promise to represent the best in the business, maybe it is worth shedding some members who don't come up to scratch.