According to distribution & development director, Keith Richards, all sectors will be challenged by a range of new regulatory requirements, which will ultimately impact on jobs across the industry and cost millions of pounds to implement.
Much of the recent focus has been on RDR, but there is a lot more on the horizon with revision to the IMD planned for early 2012, as well as a revised MiFID, the introduction of PRIPs and Solvency II. There will also be an amended regulatory architecture at both UK and European levels just to mention a few.
“The industry must join forces more effectively and be given positive incentives to develop by the regulator. Much of the impending regulation offers little by way of incentive and is perceived by many as a threat,” he asserted. “Consequently, it is increasingly difficult to see how consumers are not going to be negatively-impacted, as regulation forces further consolidation across the whole industry.
“RDR will result in changes to adviser remuneration and qualifications, as well as business model transformation. The potential effects of this are only partially understood and the latest FSA update, confirming that the costs of change have already been significantly underestimated, does not bode well.
“Although a drive to increase professionalism and deliver better outcomes for consumers is right, the regulator seems to have forgotten many of its original objectives and little in the proposed changes will actually make it easier for the industry to deliver better consumer outcomes or increase access to advice and services.
”With so much change planned, together with the associated cost burden and constant waving of the regulatory ‘stick’, it is difficult to conceive that consumer confidence will improve as a result,” he concluded.
“Tenet supports many of the principles for change, but we are increasingly concerned that the impact of new regulations will fail to deliver a more positive marketplace for the majority.”
