Ethical Feedback from Broad IFA Market

Interesting feedback from the ‘Voice of the Adviser Survey’ 2012. (See link below)

This was a survey carried out by Blue and Green Tomorrow a media company aimed at encouraging ethical and sustainable investment.  Results were obtained from over 300 Financial Adviser’s from the mainstream market as well as more specialist ethical advisers. It could be argued that most respondents  have some interest in this area but it does provide a fairly good representation of the Adviser market as a whole.

2 interesting points I picked up

Ethical Advice

Slightly more than 50% of respondent s report seeing a decline in numbers of people asking for ethical advice. This seems to challenge alternative research, such as the You Gov survey referred to later in the report. This claims that 55% of UK adults want their bank or adviser to tell them about products which produce environmental and social benefit on top of financial factors.

Maybe advisers as a whole aren’t  obtaining enough information from their clients. This is something that adviser members of the EIA will do as a matter of course. Therefore it would appear that EIA members have a real advantage in making the most of this potential growth.

Retail Distribution Review

A slim majority feel that the new regulatory regime will provide greater clarity and trust between adviser and investors.

Again this is an opportunity for members EIA to steal a march on the industry as a whole and set new ethical standards of dealing with clients.

http://blueandgreentomorrow.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Voice-of-the-Adviser-2012.pdf?utm_source=Voice+of+the+adviser+2012+email&utm_campaign=7d06c1cc25-Voice+of+the+adviser+2012+results&utm_medium=email

Richard Essex
EIA Steering Group