Taking place in the week after the FSA's final feedback statement on the RDR, The Future of Distribution in Financial Services provided a forum for life assurers, advisers, banks and fund managers to debate the implications of the final feedback statement for the financial services industry. Tied advice is now back on the agenda with some seeing IFA firms operating in both the 'independent advice' and 'guided advice' spaces. Others predicted consolidation, believing that a significant minority of IFAs would struggle to meet the new qualification and capital adequacy requirements. Most saw the majority of firms moving towards 'independent adviser' status, servicing the affluent and mass affluent markets, which opened up the question of whether the mass market will have adequate access to advice.
There were also some extremely thought provoking presentations and discussions at the end of day one and on the second day on how customer behaviour is changing and the resulting implications for product providers and their distribution strategies.
