Tough times will force advisers to make tough decisions

Where now for adviser firms who want to make their own investment decisions?

In the past few months my constant needling of the institutional structure of the investment advice industry (and wealth sector) plus my bemoaning of the RDR has provoked a number of fascinating emails from advisers. I’ll get to the comments from two examples – Anne and Simon – below but there are two distinct threads that hold the debate about the RDR and advisers’ role as professionals together. Namely, what exactly is going to be the business model for the professional investment adviser moving forward and how are they going to get customers to dip into their pockets to pay for that a...