Comments on a recent Good Returns column - Building a bigger moat around advice businesses - confirm that advisers are feeling a lot of angst about the future with readers offering their opinions on the subject.

Good Returns' Philip Macalister says in his column that the financial advice sector is going through significant changes, largely due to regulatory requirements.

He says since March many advisers have moved on but in the past "...barriers to entry were low to non-existent and pretty much anyone could hang up a shingle and call themselves a financial adviser".

Macalister suggests that instead of a low barrier to entry it will become significantly higher and the moat around advice businesses will increase in size, protecting businesses from competitors.

He also asked how many clients can an adviser effectively service in the eyes of the regulators.

Research from the Financial Sevices Council says 70.2% of advisers have more than 200 clients, 21% of advisers say they have more than 1000 clients and 15.4% claim to have between 501 and 1,000 clients.

The research says 19% of advisers meet 80% of their clients annually and that's probably not high enough for the regulator.

Consultant and compliance expert Tony Vidler says he'd challenge the concept that a single adviser cannot service a large book of business.

"The key word here is 'service'. Service is not the same as 'provide financial advice' but the inherent assumption made in the arguments relating to book size/adviser is that every client even wants personalised financial advice every year.

"The size of a book which can be managed by any firm depends entirely upon the service proposition offered to clients and agreed to by them...what the client wants, and whether the adviser delivers to their expectations is what matters here," Vidler says.

He says many clients don't want or need an annual review if advisers are already providing ongoing information and education in the form of financial literacy, together with a claims service or a rate re-fix service and an offer of a review.

"The argument which suggests that all advisers should be physically meeting with all clients every single year ignores entirely the wishes and expectations of the consumer here, and is, therefore, a nonsense."

However, "I'm not convinced that the regulator distinguishes between what level of relationship an adviser has with a client - irrespective of whether this is transactional or fiduciary in nature", one reader wrote.

"If meeting 80% of our clients annually isn't enough then we're all stuffed," another reader says.

"Most will still say no (for the next 2 or 3 years after the last interaction), especially if they got good and compliant and suitable advice, that they understood, the last time we met," he says.