AIFA

A coalition government of Labour and the Liberal Democrats would likely lead to strengthened powers for the FSA and the full implementation of the Financial Services Act, AIFA says.

Tenet is linking with the IFP to offer advisers who already hold certain qualifications a way of achieving QCF Level 6 without having to sit a formal exam.

Richard Howells, intermediary sales director at Zurich UK Life, looks at how adviser firms can use RDR qualifications as a business asset rather than a chore.

A new way of calculating IFAs' share of the FSA's annual fees which would see intermediary firms pay a third of current estimates in 2010/11 has been put to the regulator by the Association of IFAs (AIFA).

Fresh concerns over advisers' minimum qualifications surfaced this week after the trade body for IFAs launched its own exam option at a level above that proposed in the RDR.

Firms unable to show they can provide an ongoing service to the clients of an exiting adviser should be forced to let the adviser leave with them, 2plan Wealth Management CEO Chris Smallwood says.

So it appears advisers yet to reach the RDR's minimum qualification requirement (the equivalent of QCF Level 4, or, in equally confusing terms, about the same as the first year of an Honours degree) can be assessed via case studies and coursework, instead...

AIFA plans to launch its own case-study based alternative assessment which will qualify advisers to QCF Level 5, a level above the new minimum for UK advisers set by the RDR.

Independent advisers generate just a tiny portion of the total net revenue produced by the industry yet contribute a far larger chunk of its annual costs, an economics team has found.

Investment advisers are this week counting the cost of a controversial £80m FSCS interim levy to cover the collapses last year of Keydata Investment Services and two stockbrokers.