We are not a distributor of financial products. We believe that being a distributor muddies the financial planning relationship. You can identify a distributor as they hold AGENCIES with product providers; they act as AGENTS of the product providers. They are often paid for products held. This, in our opinion, creates a conflict of interest.

They may hold an agency with one, a restricted number, or an unrestricted number of product providers. The latter call themselves "independent" financial advisers or IFAs, yet they still hold agency agreements with product providers. They are independent because they can choose which providers to hold agencies with. But, they are not entirely independent of providers.

Most IFAs, run in-house model portfolios on their investment platforms. The in-house portfolio manager then holds agencies with fund houses. This technique is referred to as centralised investment propositions or "asset-hoovering". Their strategy is to move client money in-house to plug into billions of pounds of client assets and deduct their fee.

The surveys show, in general, that the resulting performance fails to beat net returns on passive retail multi-asset funds available directly to the public or via Direct to Consumer (D2C) platforms. The resulting cost difference can amount to hundreds of thousands of pounds of extra money deducted from your life savings over a lifetime. These advisers are distributors of their products!

A financial adviser who advises on products may not necessarily be a financial planner; they may be just a distributor. They may describe themselves as a financial planner. But they are product advisers.

Financial planning can be given in preparation for product selling, and the same adviser could then sell the product. Here the financial adviser is both a financial planner and a distributor, and as such, may be conflicted in their interests.

Financial advisers may call themselves unbiased and independent, but most of them (nine in ten in the UK) are still distributors. Their interpretation of unbiased and independent may not be the same as yours. You may think they have no connection with providers, but in reality, they mean they are free to choose with whom to connect. Once connected, they are not truly independent and unbiased.

Even when searching online with what you would consider trusted organisations, with search terms such as "unbiased financial planners", this will produce: unbiased.com, localfinancial.co.uk, localfinancialadvice.co.uk, financial-adviser.co.uk, financeable.co.uk … all you get in return is the name of a distributor.

Even which.co.uk and fca.org.uk provide you with distributors only! Because they are providing you with the names of regulated product advisers. All regulated product advisers are, by their very nature, product sellers!

You would think that being regulated makes a product adviser a safer choice. A safer choice might be to take advice from someone who is not trying to sell you a product. A safer choice might be to choose someone who doesn't get paid contingent on you buying a product or linked to the amount of product you buy. A better choice might be to pay a fixed fee. A better choice might be to take advice from someone who undertakes a fiduciary obligation to act in your best interest.

Remember, they are regulated because they are product sellers. You may be better off speaking to financial professionals who aren't product sellers. 

Most product advisers refuse to undertake an oath to put their client's best interest first, called a fiduciary undertaking. They refuse because they fear the legal backlash. They can't meet the obligations entirely of the fiduciary undertaking because they can't promise to place your interests first.

Nine in ten product advisers charge asset-based fees, according to Which Money? And the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). This is widely acknowledged in the international markets as conflicted remuneration, and in some countries has been banned.

It is conflicted as the payment is conditional on a product sale, and the more they sell, the more the adviser gets paid. And the longer the product provider keeps your money, the longer the adviser gets paid. As one Telegraph reader puts it,

"All they want is to plug into your assets and charge a fee."

If your Financial Planner is on the FCA register, they are a Product Seller!

You can identify a product seller as distributors are required to be registered and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. This is because there is a high risk of mis-selling amongst product sellers that the regulator is aiming, yet repeatedly failing, to mitigate. They may point to regulation as a badge of honour when historically, it has proven to be a badge of shame.

The product seller is a product adviser or an intermediating financial planner, otherwise known as a financial intermediary or distributor.

We believe that the best way to restore market integrity, trust, and confidence in the financial industry is to place a wall between advice and product!

We believe that Product Adviser and Financial Planner are two distinct roles that must be separated.

Consumer campaign groups have long called for such a wall to be established internationally for over a century. Still, the product providers have unaccountably resisted such attempts by retaining authority and power in the corridors of power through their buying power from consumer monies, and lobbyist legislation has always prevented the division.

As the founder of Life Planning, George Kinder, once said:

"There should be a wall, between advice and products, between advice and large institutions, and between our regulators and large institutions. We need integrity that is impeccable. Until we actually institute a way of bringing a good heart, great integrity, and a fiduciary relationship that is sustainable into the industry, we are going to fail. We have to make this change, and we have to make it now."

Shouldn't all organisations be held to a fiduciary standard of care toward all stakeholders, democracy, and the earth we live on? And if they did, wouldn't many of the world's problems disappear quickly, including climate change, threats to democracy, public health, racism, corruption, and inequality?
 

A Fiduciary standard of obligation is required for all institutions (corporations, non-profits, and governmental) to place the interests of all stakeholders, humanity, democracy, and the living planet that sustains us first above their self-interest. 

In the future, in the world of financial planning, we see a growing awareness in the public eye of the need for a wall between advice and product.

We need financial plans to recover from a global economic and medical emergency, not the sale of more financial products that reduce disposable income for consumers and fill the pockets of the unaccountable hierarchies of profit and power.

When change happens, and it is beginning to happen internationally, the future financial planner will be a consumer champion.

The future financial planner will be an advice-only financial planner.

(The names used are those given to the Telegraph newspaper on 18 July 2020.)

“What 'financial advisers' never mention is luck.  And you need a lot of that, 'expert' or not. What amazes me is that punters continue to pay someone to lose their money. Remarkable. The real money is in taking a 50-year view and sticking with it.  That's what charities and some wealthy families will do.  Churning is much loved by experts, but it rarely pays in the long term.”

- William Rusbridge 2020

“The FTSE follows the Dow. When markets look like they have gone too far, they retrace. Keep an eye on it, do your own investment, and wise up on tax. Start out in researched funds. Don’t borrow to buy nonessentials and you will do ok without any adviser.” Chester Drawers 2020.

“If they are so wonderful, why don't they keep their secrets and make themselves a fortune. No, it's easier to make money out of poor advice, which in the end is on a guess and really only a gamble. It’s easy to spend someone else's money.” Russell Ellis 2020.

“The only trend I can see after 15yrs investment is that the share value increases to 31st Dec annually when fees are calculated on the % value of the fund and individuals' commission calculations are made based on portfolio values. Then, funds drop in Jan through May and veer between 'creep and rocket' from late Oct to Dec. My IFA is more expensive than average based on this article, but good performance and always available, has been IFA for me for +15 years and my parents before that. Trust is imperative in this relationship and remember always that it's 'your' money so ultimately your responsibility.” Stuart Davies 2020.

“I know an IFA who works from home, about 30hrs a week, 'manages' around £10m for private clients. His current advice is 'do nothing' which may or may not be the correct response, but I am not certain it is worth the £100k pa he charges.” MR Clyde 2020.

“The capacity of people to be taken in by con men never ceases to amaze me. Why pay such people fees to invest in what pays them commission rather than invest yourself after a modicum of research into a wider range of products?” Mick Gould 2020.