ABI says simplified advice should not require level four

If simplified advice is what the banks routinely dish out, generating over a million complaints in the past 6 months alone, then anything which allows that system to continue unchecked is utterly unacceptable as far as I'm concerned and should be equally unacceptable to the FSA.

But then the FSA cannot fail to have been quite aware for the past decade of the standards of advice routinely dispensed by bank people (tailor the letter to suit the product being sold) and so far they've done virtually nothing about it. Have they?

So it will be interesting to see just what response is forthcoming from Canary Towers to this latest give-us-a-break and let our members off the hook (again) request from the ABI.

Hmm. When I go to see a solicitor I expect them to be qualified. I wouldn't want "simplified legal advice" from someone who isn't quite good enough.

You either need advice or you don't. There should be no dilution of the requirements in education for any advice given.

Will simplified advice include the complicated structured products over which the next debacle is unwinding.

Whilst I have sympathy for the banks in that they don't have the time as it is sales by volume that they require to make their models work, advice is advice and how the FSA will differentiate when complaints land on their desk God knows!

The problem as I see it is that the Government wants product shifted but they still want someone to carry the buck when it goes wrong and not the FSA.

I recommend that all think again. Raise the standards do not lower them!.

Why do we have to endure such total and absulute rubbish when it comes to education.

Schools want to abolish exams because they are too stressful.

Now all advisers are to be "qualified" but some are to be more "qualified" than others.

At the risk of having my tongue stuck firmly in my cheek I have to return to the simplest of qualifications.

Either an adviser should be deemed to be Fully Qualified and Fully Independent or Not Fully Qualified and Not Independent - and preferably the former to be a proper adviser.

If we do not get our house in order then we will continue to be persecuted by idiots who are unfamiliar with the industry and completely ignore the excellent work that is done by dedicated and resilient advisers in all sectors. And we all have excellent files that display how we have succeeded in turning clients' financial lives around.

But currently it is no wonder that other professions e.g. solicitors and accountants (incidentally I like Paul Barnard's comment regarding solicitors!) look down their noses with distain at the average so-called financial adviser.

So no more nonsense please. Let's all get properly qualified.

In my view, desperate comments from an out of touch & ill-informed organisation.

Most of their members couldn't organise the proverbial in a brewery, they are a trade organisation at best, so should just keep out of discussions re advice.

It seems that they are trying to justify their very existence - I agree with most of the views above in that advice is advice, so who is to decide what constitutes "simplified advice" & how will it be defined?? If it is just about a basic suite of products, then it can't be advice in my mind, it can only be about sales.

Why can't the likes of Ms Craig still not see that selling products & providing advice are two separate things? Products, sometimes, come into the equation at the end of the advice process, they do not constitute advice itself. They are tools to achieve a particular goal AFTER the client's full situation is known, NOT something to be flogged to all & sundry regardless.

Come on, at least sound like you know the industry you are supposed to represent.

........and such lamenting is causing them concern about their future Distribution capability.

Hence their inclination to seek lower levels of Qualifications for those who will provide (so-called) Simplified Advice !

Simplified Advice will "simply" lead to an increase in complaints.

Much of the above comments are on target.

A silly observation from an antediluvian organisation. There is no such thing as simple advice. There might be a simple sale (That usually benefits the seller more than the buyer) but the word simple juxtaposed with advice is an oxymoron and what’s more prostitutes the word ‘advice’.

Only in this country does a huge swathe of regulation to 'raise professionalism' turn the clock back a 100 years like this...I'm a great believer in simplified processes, but these do not need to be an excuse for a resurgence of DSFs flogging crap products.

(1) Simplified processes for 'bog standard' savings & investment products can be developed via online tools...For ISAs, for example, you just need to put an awful lot of work into developing a range of model 'off the shelf' ISAs...you then get a low marginal-cost process...you can easily offer a choice between online execution or such a process supplemented with focused but distanced advice...this can be done with a 30-60 minute per sale process...

(2) Likewise, such a methodology could *easily* be used, say, to give IFAs a streamlined process with a laptop for those clients wanting face-to-face focused advice. I mean, why can't we give a simplified process for proper IFAs to do 'on the side' whilst doing normal IFAing...A proper IFA being able to spot those clients that fall outside the parameters of such a process...

I just don't understand why we need to fill the gap caused by crushing the small IFA through increased exam & capital requirements with allowing these DSFs & Bancassurers to flog products to target...

...why not just try making it easier for the IFAs so that the clients get some value from whole-of-market product selection and the experience of a more rounded IFA? If we must allow exceptions to level 4, isurely it should be targeted at experienced IFAs in these markets, not for dirty DSFs?

And say that I actually agree with the thrust of what Maggie Craig is getting at and if you read what MIB has said above, it looks like he is thinking as I am of ways to deliver advice to the masses cost effectively and without the advice firm taking excessive risk.

Don't right off Maggie Craig's ideas without listening to her talk (there was a Citywire recording a few months ago and I thought she made a lot of sense). If you DO write off what she says without thinking things through or listening then you will be as bad as Linda Woodall at the FSA who refused to even read our intended new Client Agreement before threatening us with a vist from enforcement.

IF we are to have a simplified advice process, then my solution (and we've been doing it for over 2 years) is that all simplified advice should be recorded so that the advisory firm can prove they have not over.under stepped the mark and failed to refer on to someone for detaield advice where it is demonstrably necessary.

Having been both tied and Independant, I accept that some advice is better than no advice and the client needs to be able to put a monetary/time limit on the level of independance followed by the adviser. To some extent the Independant/tied argument misses the point sometimes when the cost of Independant research can outweigh the advanatges of an Independant solution.

Ironically the bit I disagree with Maggiie on is that I thinkwe need some read across from Investments to protection and mortgages, we just need the factoring issue on protection thought through a little better.

Personally I think the best thing the FSA could do is change the RDR from a deadline to a set of aims to be achieved before each barrier is reached and clearly define what each aim is again. Work out what FSA Utopia is and then work backwards as to what needs to happen/change in order to get there and as each goal is achieved/unlocked a step forward to their Utopia is taken. It then has to be remembered that Utopaie may not prove to be that nice when you get there!