Financial Advising - Starting out advice

TEZZA1978

Hi, I'm new to the MSE Forum but have been receiving the weekly email for sometime now and find it fantastic, personally I'd like to say thanks and well done to everyone involved.

I'm not sure if this is the right place to post this query and apologies in advance, however here goes:

I've been working in Accountancy for 10 years now in various different roles, however I am looking for a career change and would like to become a Financial Adviser as I have always been interested in becoming an IFA. I actually went for a position at Bridgfords this year however they were more interested in hard selling and achieving targets which is not for me. Obviously I do not have any skilled experience of Financial Advising, only what I know from dealing with Advisers when arranging mortgages, pensions and savings over the years. I'm looking at studying CII CF1 to CF8

Therefore I would be very grateful if you have any advice i.e. will it be difficult to achieve without having prior experience in the Financial Advising? Is the CF1 to CF8 route the way to go? etc etc.

Thanks in advance

dunstonh

I'm looking at studying CII CF1 to CF8

To be a sales rep you need CF1 to CF5. You also need cemap 1,2 & 3 if you want to do mortgages. (CF6-8 are not required unless you want them. Without looking I am not even sure what they are).

Working to the RDR rules which are being finalised in October, to be an IFA you will also need to sit four of the diploma level exams J0x (x being the number of the exam you choose).

Increasingly, IFAs are dropping mortgages (or dropping IFA status and becoming mortgage advisers) as trying to give best advice in both areas usually means being a jack of all trades, master of none and increasingly IFAs are focusing on specialist areas.

I actually went for a position at Bridgfords this year however they were more interested in hard selling and achieving targets which is not for me.

IIRC, they are an estate agent so being an IFA with them would a) be pointless and expensive when mortgage adviser is really what is needed and b) sales, sales, sales. That is normal with estate agents (and funnily enough quite a few account firms with IFAs in house. The biggest regional accountant uses IFAs on a salesforce style target based remuneration method).

Looking at your options you need to realise that going straight to IFA is damned hard. The natural career path is to spend time as a mortgage adviser first or work as a tied sales rep with a bank or insurance company. That gives you some experience and most importantly, some clients you can take with you when you go IFA. Plus, when you realise that you have 3 mortgage exams and 9 investment advice exams (the diploma level only has 2 sittings a year as well) then going straight to IFA would be a bit unrealistic unless you do time with a salesforce.

will it be difficult to achieve without having prior experience in the Financial Advising?

Over half of new advisers fail and leave the industry within 2 years. Most of those will end up in debt. Most common reason for failure is lack of clients. Plus, you cannot be a self employed adviser (with your own firm or partnership) without having experience first or employing someone that does.

Looking ahead, the new qualification requirements are expected to see most of the sales type advisers cease to be IFA and become tied or multi-tied sales reps or mortgage advisers. Surveys suggest 1 in 4 or 5 will leave. So, there should be scope for good quality advisers to come on board. However, expectation is that the banks and salesforces will start to pay less for their sales reps as more are likely to become authorised as counter staff will be able to sell products in future using a simplified sales process. So, the initial starting out may see lower earnings whilst the IFA world is likely to see higher earnings with not too many falling in the middle.

[Deleted User]

Hi,

The savings forum has a lot of threads on this - I've just done a couple of searches for 'qualification' and 'exam' and found the following:

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=973727&highlight=qualifications
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=906653&highlight=qualifications
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=594978&highlight=qualifications
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=979541&highlight=exam
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=533532&highlight=exam