Angus Dale-Jones, who was previously director of supervision at the defunct Securities Commission (now the Financial Markets Authority), now sits on the other side of the table as a consultant to the financial services sector.

Part of his job is helping businesses deal with compliance issues and he said people often react to regulation rather than taking a “front foot” approach to it.

“I do a lot of positioning work to help people stay a step ahead of the regulations.  It’s about saying, let’s try and understand what business directives suit us and how can we structure the business in such a way we can operate in the regulated environment?” 

A key point many advisers seem to have missed, Dale-Jones said, is that the regulations not only provide protection for consumers but for those who give the advice as well.

“There are 2000 AFAs but an awful lot of people have deliberately engineered their business to avoid AFA status.  What they don’t seem to have realised is it gives them a protection they are missing outside of AFA status.”

This protection includes have reached a competency level agreed as appropriate and having a professional disciplinary committee to adjudicate on complaints, he said.

“RFAs are saying they’re better off without that but it’s like street fighting; there’s no referee to protect you.  What’s all the energy about avoiding the regulatory space?  Surely it has to offer you advantages.”

Dale-Jones said his client base had been shifting away from advisers and towards the wider financial services sector, reflecting the on-going roll-out of financial regulations including the Financial Markets Conduct Bill.

“The financial services sector is where the regulatory blowtorch is at the moment.”