Its findings will be of great interest to jurisdictions around the world, as many of them are either introducing or underway with regulations in the style of the Retail Distribution Review.
The Treasury’s Financial Advice Market Review is rightly aimed at exploring how to deliver high quality advice to the mass market, particularly in relation to those at the retirement stage in their lives.
A host of solutions immediately spring to mind, involving a mix of the best from the past, a good sprinkling of the current regime and more than a nod to the next phase of technology know how and the prospect of robo-advice.
One interesting point made recently by Royal London chief executive Phil Loney is that financial advisers could re-model their businesses more along the lines of the legal profession.
As he points out, people do not go to one all-purpose lawyer for all their requirements and there is definitely scope to focus the advice to suit different needs.
Fine tuning propositions from a product provider perspective and finding ways to make the advice giving economically viable to those who do not have high net worth is certainly part of the agenda that could potentially lead to a golden scenario for all.
Yet, what the RDR has done is to encourage advisers to segment their client banks and in many cases reject exactly those targeted by this new review.
By far the best way to ensure everyone gets a fair shot is to radically simplify the tax regime and financial regulations so that complicated financial advice giving becomes a thing of the past.
That could be combined with decent financial planning education for all the public, preferably from an early age.
But I can’t quite see it working out that way.
