The Financial Services Authority (FSA) are this week introducing a new category of advisor of financial products to the U.K. – as well as dealing with independent and tied advisers, we will now be able buy products from “multi-tied”advisors.
In the past, the choice was to go to an independent financial advisor who could recommend from a whole range of products from a multitude of providers (but would charge charge a fee or take commission from the policy for their services), or to visit a tied advisor who would only be able to sell you a product from their own company’s range – and maybe not get you the best product on the market.
This situation was seen as being unacceptable by the FSA, and so they cam up with the idea of multi-tied advisors, who would be able to sell the products of a few different providers. This was meant to provide consumers with greater access to financial products through a channel which would best suit them and for reasonable value. However, in reality, it is thought that it may create more confusion, as any financial institution could conceivably have all three types of advisor under the same roof – consumers may therefore believe they are getting a search of the whole market when in fact they are dealing with a multi-tied agent who is using a limited panel of providers.
Read more about this at The Scotsman.