The banning of commission on the sale of pensions and investments was not some piece of bureaucracy hoisted upon us by faceless Brussels mandarins ten years ago, but rather the brainchild of our very own regulator. Now the EU are looking to copy us and facing stiff resistance. In Europe, they don’t have a myriad of independent advice firms as we do, with the banks and big insurance companies dominating the market. They are, I would guess, a pretty strong lobby over there, whereas here, when it all happened in 2013, they were pretty much emasculated following the banking crash and bailouts and the adviser community had no unified voice of protest. Had the same thing been tried when the banks were at the height of their powers a few years earlier, I doubt it would have happened. We might still have problems but they would have been very different and perhaps more manageable. Again, be careful what you wish for.
“FCA announces plan to reduce regulatory burden on financial services firms”
Our regulator’s latest initiative is to reduce the amount of regulation. It’s become apparent that their previous big initiative, ‘consumer duty’, has made many look at the work they do and clients they look after, and decide that to do the job properly they have to look after less and perhaps charge more for complying with all the detailed compliance the rules require.
