A new website has launched which allows you to compare and view reviews of financial advisers.
VouchedFor aims to help consumers find the best individual financial advisors in the UK, and then provide feedback on the financial advisor they sign up with.
The site is specifically aimed at reviews for “RDR-ready” advisers; RDR is a long-running FSA initiative to try to raise the standard of financial advice given to consumers, which is reflected in the way advisers charge for advice and the level of qualifications they must achieve, amongst other things.
Adam Price, founder of VouchedFor said:
“With VouchedFor.co.uk, we want to help consumers find the best financial advisors. Clients have always sought IFAs through personal recommendations, but in this day and age people expect to find those recommendations aggregated online. You only have to look at the impact sites like Amazon, Tripadvisor, TopTable, Reevoo and RatedPeople have had on their respective industries to see this.â€
To use the site, you simply enter your postcode and choose what type of adviser you’re looking for (by the type of product they can offer advice on). The site then returns the closest matches. You can further refine your search by the level of assets the client needs to deal with the adviser (eg. “£100k of investible assets or household income”), their level of qualification and the distance from your postcode.
Having only just launched, there aren’t too many advisers or reviews on the site, so VouchedFor has some way to go if it wishes to rival one of the biggest IFA directories, Unbiased.co.uk, for the numbers of financial advisers featured. But as we’re so used to reading online reviews for other products and services before taking the plunge, it makes sense that we should be able to do it for financial advisers.