Independence tag may not catch all advisers

There are technical challenges associated with implementing the RDR rules, not least in the FSA’s definition of ‘Retail Investment Products’. How firms respond to the challenges of interpreting these rules will determine who thrives and who perishes in the retail advisory sphere after 2012. The European Commission’s (EC) work in defining and protecting consumers in relation to packaged retail investment products (PRIPs) describes such products as those “that are normally marketed directly to retail investors”. In the RDR, however, the FSA’s widening of the range of products to which t...