Business tough in 2008?

IFAOnline reports a recent survey of 104 intermediaries.  86% of this sample said that they expected the regulatory burden to get tougher in 2008 - and this despite the FSA's much-vaunted simplification of the Conduct of Business (COBS) regulations, with the new emphasis on 'Principles-Based Regulation'.

The IFAs concerned are probably quite right to be doubtful about the beneficial effects of these changes (effective from 01/11/2007).  After all, when the FSA assured us that MiFID would not impact on us, that was not strictly what happened in practice.  And COBS itself, a masterpiece of the arcane art of hypertext, is very far from being an accessible improvement on the sourcebook it replaced.

Our conclusion?  Expect things to get worse before they get better.  Currently we are operating in a kind of twilight world - post COBS but pre-RDR (or at least pre whatever emerges from the consultation process).  At 2020 Financial Services, we have concluded that the solution is an entirely new financial-planning advice platform, which we are in the process of designing.  Please bookmark this site and revisit us for news of future developments!

[If you want to download our latest bulletin on 'Principles-Based Advice', please first click on 'Permalink', and then look for it in the pale blue column to the left]

Finally...

The same survey of IFAs indicated that 53% of them were either "concerned" or "very concerned" about the stockmarket.  Time to be looking at your client portfolios and rebalancing them?  In 2006, 2020 Financial Services ran "Recession-Proof Your Business" workshops - time for something along these lines again?