4th October 2012

The Panacea Twitterview - Adviser charging

On 4^th October Panacea ran a ‘Twitterview’ with Equifax My Touchstone.  Using no more than 140 characters per answer, we got the lowdown from Peter Welch, IFA Key Account Director at MyTouchstone, who provided his views on how IFA's can best benchmark themselves and justify fees to clients post RDR. 

Please read the transcript of the interview below.

@My_Touchstone Where can I get accurate information on the level of fees charged in my area by other IFAs?

@Panacea Data on the level of fees charged in a local area can be found by logging onto mytouchstone.co.uk the service is free to IFAs

@My_Touchstone What factors should I take into account when deciding on the level of fee to charge?

@Panacea Establish what customers actually get for their money & benchmarking against the market rate for your chosen level of service.

@My_Touchstone How best can I justify fees to my clients?

@Panacea If you truly believe in your service & its worth you'll rarely be asked. Or, list the things you do for them clients never see

@My_Touchstone Do you agree that some people will be disenfranchised from financial advice when adviser charging is in place?

@Panacea One could argue most UK consumers are already "disenfranchised" from f2f advice. In reality will RDR dramatically change that?

@My_Touchstone Can you imagine a way that advisers who want to serve ordinary people can do so profitably?

@Panacea Yes but involves a cultural shift & dramatic change to advisers' business models through a multi-channel offering to clients

@My_Touchstone How do you see it working when a client just wants a small pension i.e. savings of £50 p/m – how do you charge for this?

@Panacea A tough one. My challenge back is to ask whether it's cost effective even in the "old world" to service this client segment?

@My_Touchstone Do you think the providers will be geared up to allow the first 10 premiums to be redirected to advisers to pay their fee?

@Panacea One could argue putting man on the moon was an easier task than that of the providers making ready for RDR. Let's wait & see!  

@My_Touchstone Do you think the public really understand the changes that are coming? What can advisers do to communicate them to clients?

@Panacea No, Joe Public will have missed this one. I'd urge Advisers to get on the front foot and educate their clients of the benefits

@My_Touchstone Do you think it is likely that regulators will ever publish suggested costs for certain work, or is that price fixing?

@Panacea The Regulator wants people to know what they are paying for so no. Advisers should be mindful of "Fair Value" when setting fees

@My_Touchstone Many thanks for your time this afternoon for a very informative Twitterview and to @PeteMatthew for helping provide questions

RDR