Hero
This week the heroes are the Personal Finance Society (PFS) and Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB). They have been running a pilot for a financial education programme which involves advisers giving up a little of their time to help the general public with financial matters. While both bodies have taken some flack recently from advisers for they way they have handled the initiative we should applaud and encourage such a venture. After all, it must be in the longer-term interests of our industry to educate the public and to make them more financially aware. I would also expect that a relatively small time investment of this nature by advisers would result in some business for them at some point as long as they maintain an ongoing relationship with those that they meet.
Although it may be difficult for the PFS and CAB to get advisers to commit up-front to a fixed amount of pro bono work, I suspect that many advisers would be happy to get involved in such an initiative on an ad-hoc basis and that many already are. It’s a great idea but needs handling with tact and diplomacy.
Zero
That honour must go to all the networks. One by one they are starting to crumble as supply outstrips demand. More and more intermediaries are realising that the AR route is not all that it was cracked up to be and taking control of their destiny by being directly authorised with the help of a support services provider is a better solution. The consequences of network failure for ARs is that they could lose both the initial income that is due to them and potentially any renewals because their income will belong to the liquidator.
The direct route will become increasing attractive too as existing networks, many of which have promised the earth for next to nothing in terms of fees, fail to deliver what they said they would. I only hope that those brokers who have had a bad experience with a network don’t get seduced by false promises from other networks. Simply moving from one failed network to another potential failure will not solve the problem; only direct authorisation will achieve this. Furthermore, the widespread availability of compliance support and access to products via mortgage clubs should encourage more brokers to make the switch too.
