Drop in well paid using IFA's

atush

've had dealings with half a dozen IFAs recently (and various other brokers, advisers, and salesmen over 30+ years prior to that) and all have been rogues, all ex-salesmen, and all with extremely limited financial knowledge except of the retail products that paid them sales commission.

you can't be an IFA and have " extremely limited financial knowledge"as you wouldn't be certified nor hired by a firm of IFAs.

Again, I think you like many are confusing FAs with IFAs.

Rollinghome

jem16 wrote: »

Please do stick to the facts.

Yes let's. Can we assume that whatever his posts and PMs were, they were brought to the attention of the board-owner by the complaints of another user?

Could one of those complainants have been you?

I take it that you also agree that all the other IFAs here and their devoted groupies, including you, constantly denied any problems with commission based "advice" or the even the existence of commission bias and certainly did not support the proposals of the RDR as was claimed in that earlier post?

If you've at last changed your mind that's good.

Do you now agree that the banning of commission and higher training requirements for IFAs is a positive step despite the still non-stop wailing of many IFAs? (some even claiming that their human rights are being abused as a result of RDR. )

qpop

Rollinghome wrote: »

Yes let's. Can we assume that whatever his posts and PMs were, they were brought to the attention of the board-owner by the complaints of another user?

Could one of those complainants have been you?

I take it that you also agree that all the other IFAs here and their devoted groupies, including you, constantly denied any problems with commission based "advice" or the even the existence of commission bias and certainly did not support the proposals of the RDR as was claimed in that earlier post?

If you've at last changed your mind that's good.

Do you now agree that the banning of commission and higher training requirements for IFAs is a positive step despite the still non-stop wailing of many IFAs? (some even claiming that their human rights are being abused as a result of RDR. )

I'm not sure if your interpretation of the word "fact" is different from mine, because in that post all I see is posturing and speculation? It's a little light on facts.

Rollinghome

atush wrote: »

you can't be an IFA and have " extremely limited financial knowledge"as you wouldn't be certified nor hired by a firm of IFAs.

Again, I think you like many are confusing FAs with IFAs.

I can only assume you haven't had many dealing with IFAs and aren't aware of how basic the current training requirements are. What qualifications did the one you saw have?

IFAs currently need no educational qualifications, not even in woodwork, and the required Level 3 qualification is only equivalent to that obtainable by hairdressers, nail-technicians, classroom assistants, and under-managers at McDonalds (as famously pointed out by the Treasury minister Mark Hoban).

Ask the majority about anything other than commission paying retail products and they won't have a clue. That even includes collective investments like investment trusts. In a survey for the FT the majority of IFAs said they didn't recommend investment trusts 1) because they didn't pay them commission and 2) because they didn't understand them.

Don't expect them to know anything whatsoever about non-retail investments. They aren't required to know.

If you really think that the run-of-the-mill IFA has extensive financial knowledge then it could be that you need to brush up with a book yourself. Don't be fooled by the stripey suits.

Rollinghome

qpop wrote: »

I'm not sure if your interpretation of the word "fact" is different from mine, because in that post all I see is posturing and speculation? It's a little light on facts.

Your point being what?

The post asks two questions. What facts were you hoping for?

(Other than that the IFAs on this board apart from the one mentioned vehemently opposed the banning of commission and better qualifications, were supported by Jem16, and did not support RDR as Linton seems to be claiming. I'm surprised none of them has popped up to confirm that and surely Jem16 won't have the brass neck to claim otherwise.)

Edit: Ah I see you are another IFA, so yes, your interpretation of the term "facts" may well be different from mine. What were you selling before you became an IFA? Lifelong salesmen tend to have their own idea of facts.

Will you be pleased to see the ending of commission under RDR to resolve the problem of commission-bias identified by the FSA?

2010

Highly qualified IFA`s, well they need an A level.

Have you ever used a financial adviser to help you out with a money decision? Did you stop to ask about their qualifications? Most of us don’t, and yet a ‘qualified advisor’ may only have an A-level equivalent.


When you take financial advice, whether it’s about planning for your future, investing money or choosing a pension, you’re putting your money and future in the hands of others.

You’ll probably assume that your adviser is qualified, but have you ever stopped to wonder what these qualifications actually mean? And did you realise the minimum qualification for an independent financial adviser (IFA) is only equivalent to an A-level?

http://conversation.which.co.uk/money/is-an-a-level-qualification-enough-for-financial-advisers/

robmatic

atush wrote: »

you can't be an IFA and have " extremely limited financial knowledge"as you wouldn't be certified nor hired by a firm of IFAs.

Again, I think you like many are confusing FAs with IFAs.

I've worked for various employee benefit consultancies and life offices and have first-hand experience of dealing with many commission-focussed IFAs with limited knowledge.

I would certainly have reservations about entrusting a pension which wasn't a PP to an IFA, or investments which aren't unit trusts/OEICs.

gadgetmind

Rollinghome wrote: »

Ask the majority about anything other than commission paying retail products and they won't have a clue. That even includes collective investments like investment trusts.

My (now history!) IFA had some interesting suggestions when I said that fees on funds were making me consider moving. He said that Skandia were going to be offering some fancy things called ETFs, and then proceeded to explain what these were in sufficient detail for it to be completely clear that he had close to zero idea as to what they were.

I think he started to realise that the meeting wasn't going well when I asked about physical versus replicated and counterparty risk.

[edit]

I lead him down this path to see if he mentioned Blackrock trackers. He didn't. When I later mailed to ask about them, he said he could take a look, but he'd probably have to start charging me 0.5% of my portfolio pa as commission if I wanted to use them.

Dame desu!

Gadgetmind is now (with some reluctance) Mr. DIY. Assets moved, portfolio balanced, TER=0.4%, slippers and pipe ordered.

Aegis

Rollinghome wrote: »

Are you kidding or just suffer from a very bad memory? :rotfl:

You will find that ALL the IFAs on this forum did all they could to rubbish RDR and assured us there was no such thing as commission-bias and no problem with the sales commission system they used. At least one of them still does.

You can do a search or you can just ask dunstonh or Aegis ....

Lying as usual, I see. Please stop stating what you know to be false, as I have corrected you on this matter a number of times. Last time was only a few months ago, where you also strongly implied that I was deliberately obscuring facts (i.e. lying), which is ironic given the perpetual claims you make about me and others on this forum.

Once more, for the benefit of anyone who might actually think that Rollinghome is still in any way to be trusted, a post from August:

Aegis wrote:

I have always been in favour of the RDR generally. There are a few things about it that I don't like, but to claim that I tried to trash the RDR is just plain wrong.

If you want some clarity of my views, here are the highlights:

• the qualifications requirement is spot on for the time being, though it would be nice to see some exams with more relevant content and less emphasis on passing multiple choice exams. Ultimately I see this as rising to a level 6 qualification requirement, which I think is good if they want to turn the industry into more of a profession, not so good for affordable financial advice
• banning commission is going to have knock-on consequences that haven't been thought through fully by the FSA. In theory I support the idea of transparent charging, but if it leads to higher costs I think it's not a worthwhile trade-off for the consumer. Ultimately I think it's much better for the consumer to have more choice rather than less, however I can appreciate that the FSA wants to remove commission bias (though I'm surprised they haven't actually bothered to demonstrate that it exists before banning commission to get rid of it...)
• general implementation has been terrible. The FSA has been very slow at releasing some very critical papers which detail how certain aspects of RDR are going to be set in motion, which has made it next to impossible to actually revise business models ahead of 2013

All in all, there are bits I like and bits I don't. To state that I've been repeatedly trashing it is just wrong when I've been in full support of the qualification requirement since it was announced.

I don't expect I'll receive an apology for this deliberate misrepresentation of my position, but hopefully a few others will realise from this just how dishonest Rollinghome is in his efforts to discredit IFAs.

Rollinghome

Aegis wrote: »

Lying as usual, I see. Please stop stating what you know to be false, as I have corrected you on this matter a number of times. Last time was only a few months ago, where you also strongly implied that I was deliberately obscuring facts (i.e. lying), which is ironic given the perpetual claims you make about me and others on this forum.

Once more, for the benefit of anyone who might actually think that Rollinghome is still in any way to be trusted, a post from August:



I don't expect I'll receive an apology for this deliberate misrepresentation of my position, but hopefully a few others will realise from this just how dishonest Rollinghome is in his efforts to discredit IFAs.

"Lying as usual" That's quite a serious accusation. Is it really necessary to be abusive in that way? Why do we always get this from the IFAs on this board? Lying is a deliberate misrepresentation of the truth and I don't do that.

As I understand you, you seem to be saying that you weren't fully opposed to RDR. From my recollection you repeatedly argued that commission wasn't a problem and yet the ending of commission is central to the RDR.

Instead of just being abusive could you clarify your position to avoid future misunderstanding?

You used to work for a bank until a year or so ago and then you decided after joining this board to become an IFA. Is that right.

Your position now is that you agree with RDR? In its entirity or only in parts? Do you now agree that commission bias was a problem and that it is right that commission will be banned and that higher qualifications will be required from 2013.

You suggested the levels of poor advice could somehow be assessed by the frequency of complaints.

Without any more abuse could you answer my question, already asked twice I think, and say what action my friend should take to ensure that the IFA he saw can't rip-off others as he attempted to do with him? Who should he complain to and how? Or do you think that the behaviour described is fully up to the standard to be expected from an IFA and no complaint justified?

Could I also ask you something else? You have recently become an IFA but when and how often have you used one, or perhaps an advisory stockbroker, to get a client's-eye view of what happens?

Do you know how some in your trade behave? It might be that you and the company you work for are entirely different from those I've encountered. The IFA my friend used was recommended to him, which is worrying in itself, and possibly indicates that many clients don't realise when they're getting poor advice.

Another friend thought he'd saved money by using his brother-in-law who was an IFA but hadn't realised that his brother-in-law had in fact been paid a large chunk of commission. According to the BBC programme Moneybox, a high proportion of people are completely unaware that they are paying trail commission. Paul Lewis was subjected to a sustained attack from IFAs which can be seen on the IFA websites for airing the programme.

On the other hand, if you prefer to just be abusive, forget it, and I'll understand.