FTA: Which elements of your current business are directly related to the RDR and its new rules?
SG: The legacy of the RDR is apparent throughout our business in several ways.
This includes much greater standardisation of process, not least in the approach to providing investment advice. We have much greater investment in compliance, but often for better overall outcomes.
The pressure to improve efficiency and productivity, coupled with an expanding range of tools to meet the demands of modern financial planning clients has led to greater investment in and a growth in uptake of financial planning technology.
And finally, it would be remiss not to mention that the RDR prompted a trend towards consolidation of advice businesses, which we have seen evident within our network and is an area in which we’ve increased support for our appointed representatives.
FTA: What were the biggest challenges for large firms in implementing the RDR?
SG: The RDR created a shift in the tectonic plates of advice and most notably by effectively ending the bank advice model to the mass market.
However, the many firms who were already serving the affluent market and already on the journey towards RDR gained from the removal of bank advice as wealth advice became more limited.
In fact, as is often the case with large pieces of regulation, larger firms on the whole fared better given they had the resources to implement it well.
The RDR was introduced in a phased approach, with different aspects of the reforms coming into effect at different times, but it was still a huge change and firms needed to carefully manage the implementation process in order to ensure compliance with the new regulations.
Ultimately the advice profession has proven time and again to be highly resilient and adaptable, as was the case during the pandemic, and I’m confident it will emerge from the consumer duty even stronger.
FTA: How has the RDR changed what networks are looking for in their advisers?
SG: The RDR has helped change the culture of the financial advice industry for the better and it is like-minded advisers that networks will now be looking for in order for quality products and services to be disseminated to the end client.
We want to grow with our advisers and as such it is important to find advisers who have the ambition and appetite to provide quality financial advice.
