"claw back commissions"

lofty170366

This is the title to an interesting article on page 4 of a suppliment to the Financial Times on Saturday 1st July.The suppliment is called "FT Money".I am a very small private investor who regularly reads the FT but I strongly believe this article should be put on the mse board.Basically,it focuses on individuals who have built up a sizeable value in their PEP,ISA,equity fund,etc.and who have perhaps not realised their original financial adviser is no longer in business.The main financial companies holding such a client's investments seem to be sending out letters to these individuals indicating that if they(the client) haven't found a new advisor and don't hear back from them then they(the company) would update their records to reflect the client as a "direct client".This all seems ok except this is where the "sting in the tail" comes in.Do you know that under these circumstances the fund manager will save serious cash as it no longer has to pay out annual renewal commissions to the advisor? This can easily equate to an annual commission of £500.00 for someone who has built up a fund value of £100,000.Multiply this with the number of individuals in a similar position and you can see that a sizeable level of cash is being kept within the coffers of financial companies.The article of course goes into the matter in alot more detail setting out many of the well rehearsed arguments put up by the fund management industry.However,according to the article there does seem to be a few ways in which the individual can get alot of this money back.I really hope that this matter catches the attention of Martin Lewis as I don't consider it trivial and it could benefit alot of people out there!

Aark

The issues of commissions, fund charges and discount brokers are covered on this site, although it is quite an old article:

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/cgi-bin/viewnews.cgi?newsid1080463348,20132,