The data from Fecif’s research across Europe has been collated in its White Book, which the organisation says provides unprecedented detail of the European IFA sector.
The project looked at 15 countries, including major markets such as Germany, France, Italy and the UK.
Topics covered include sales turnover, the value of contracts intermediated, and the total workforce employed in the sector in each country.
No consistency
Fecif chairman David Charlet said: “Despite forming the backbone of European financial distribution in many retail industries, including insurance, investments and mortgages, the advisory sector is fragmented and there is no consistent data reporting or aggregation.
“Most of the national associations collect some basic figures about their members, but these are not combined on a pan European level and often do not follow the same methodology. This creates a serious deficiency compared to the information possessed by other European financial bodies […].
“Because reliable empirical data on the advisory market is missing, regulatory proposals made by the European Commission in this regard are often inappropriate and cannot be qualified correctly,” Charlet said.
Jiri Sindelar, Fecif vice chairman and project manager of the White Book, said: “This was no small feat, because there is little data readily available.
“Much information was therefore obtained with the help of our members, in particular national trade associations across the EU, making this unique among contemporary studies.”
All data sources
As well as gaining insight and information via its own national trade association members, Fecif also obtained, verified and collated data from official databases of public institutions and publicly available information.
Some of the key areas Fecif looked into were:
- How strong is the advisory workforce in Europe and in the individual member states?
- How many financial products (by number and value) are sold by advisers to individual customers, on a per-country basis and also across Europe?
- What is the volume of assets directly influenced by the advisory sector?
- What is the contribution of the sector’s activity to national and European economies (e.g. GDP, employment, financial market performance)?
Information gap
Paul Stanfield, Fecif’s secretary general, said: “Financial advisers and intermediaries play a significant role in the distribution of insurance, investments, loans and pension schemes.
“But, until now, there was no resilient, extensive and internationally comparable figures collected about this sector, on a European basis. For the first time, our Pan-European Financial Advice Market Research Project addresses this information gap by providing facts and figures on a country by country basis, along with indicative conclusions on the sector across the whole of Europe.”
The report and research are available, at no additional charge, to Fecif members. Non-members can purchase it directly from the Federation.
