The industry rule setter, the Financial Services Authority, is reportedly investigating how staff of financial services companies are paid.
The paper is being researched on the best ways to incentivise and reward staff yet avoid mis-selling.
Our view
When a person's pay is directly linked to how much they sell, whatever the industry, there will always be an element of overselling or indeed mis-selling.
We stick to what we have said all along, if the industry had moved as it was supposed to have done a few years ago to a fee basis, fixed fees or indeed maximum commissions agreements there would not be any issue of mis-selling.
There will always be the risk of poor advice or mistakes but never mis-selling or overselling. The regulator got it wrong when it backed away from fees as part of its industry review.
Our view stands100% for Financial Advisers should be qualified to at least Advanced Financial Planning Certificate Standard.
100% of Financial Advisers should be Independent Financial Advisers. 100% of Financial Advisers should offer a fee based service. 100% of Investment, Pensions and Life Assurance Companies should pay fixed commissions
!It works perfectly well in the legal profession with the Law Society setting fee scales - why not in finance?
If you need advice take some from the Online Financial Adviser of the Year ......... !