The FCA has no plans to raise the qualification level for financial advisers, Rory Percival has said.
The FCA technical specialist was responding to a question posed to him at the Personal Finance Society’s national conference in Birmingham on 6 November, which asked if the FCA should raise the bar for advisers to level six.
Mr Percival said there was no plan to increase the supervisory standards. In his speech, he said advisers had “taken strides” to turn the industry into a profession, with more advisers going beyond diploma status.
He also said financial advice was “on the right track” to becoming a profession, but it would take time to change consumers’ perceptions of advisers.
Mr Percival added that the mindset was such that consumer confidence would increase once the profession had over time “demonstrated professionalism collectively and earned their trust”.
The industry’s professional status would also rise once adviser firms focused on the delivery of advice over product sales, according to Mr Percival.
Mr Percival took to Twitter the day after his presentation to clarify his remarks, saying: “The interpretation of professionalism I used in my presentation were those of PFS/CII.”
Also at the conference, Stephanie Flanders, chief market strategist at JP Morgan Asset Management, said it was a mistake to equate risk and reward with volatility.
Giving an economic overview, she said: “We know risk is over-rewarded when people feel confident and-under-rewarded when risk averse. One should tilt towards risk as it is more rewarded now than at an other time.”
Adviser View
Nick Bamford, executive director of Surrey-based Informed Choice, said: “Pre-2006 I recall that chartered level status six was the aspiration for the industry, but probably was a bridge too far at the time.
“Since the retail distribution review, many people have strived to go beyond that level voluntarily, and they deserve recognition. For some advisers level six is too much, and not necessary for those dealing in mortgages and savings. It is more for people dealing with complex issues such as retirement and care fees.”
