But on sites such as this it’s advice we do well to ignore. The comments section is really valuable to get a sense of what those in the industry feel. 

Usually we have a good idea before we post a story of what will generate comments and what is likely to be met with silence.

So I was interested in the reaction to the story about SiFA’s Financial Advisers Act submission, which asked what harm RFAs were doing to cause them to need to be subjected to a higher level of regulation.

I expected this to be something that would fire up a good response, considering what a hot topic regulation is at the moment.

It seems pretty likely that these registered but not authorised advisers are going to be required to step up their qualifications and meet new disclosure requirements under the new version of the Financial Advisers Act.

It won’t be long before we know what changes are to be introduced and I think it is safe to say that it is RFAs who will be feeling the heat. It does not seem likely that the AFA bar will be lifted much higher at this stage.

It seemed SiFA was the one industry player willing to go in to bat for RFAs, to say that the cost of imposing more regulation might not be worth the outcomes it would provide.

Although there was a small amount of reaction, none of the people who commented on the article were RFAs. There were no rallying cries of support, no “thank goodness someone is speaking up for us”.

Does this mean they do not mind the prospect of being required to meet a new level of regulation? We’ve been talking about it for so long that surely the issue is not a lack of awareness. Maybe it indicates that they have already accepted it as inevitability.

SiFA has stepped up to argue the case against an increasingly regulatory burden – and had, on this site at least, not one word of RFA support.

It makes me wonder what the reaction will be when we finally do know what FAA version two will look like.