2010 Fee Advisor SurveyService fees to alter planning approach, Sydney Morning Herald, April 2010, by Jan Maccallum, Financial planners say consumers will benefit as commission-based advice is phased out. The relationship between financial planners and (Australian) consumers is about to change as the advisory industry abandons commissions and moves towards charging consumers a fee for service.
Making Beautiful Music Together—why advisors should form ensembles, AdvisorAnalyst, March 2010, by Marc Lamontagne, CFP, R.F.P, FMA, There are three basic business models in the financial planning industry: sole practitioner, silo, and ensemble. The trend to forming ensembles or group practices is well established in the U.S. among independent advisors, but has yet to emerge as a dominant model in Canada.
To fee or not to fee: pricing models in financial counselling, Bancaria (Italian Journal), January 2010, by Camilla Mazzoli and Gianni Nicolini, An empirical research on the Italian market will show the logic of the advisory pricing models and the differences between the models adopted in USA, UK and Australia. Most the cases, the pricing strongly depend upon the type of financial advisory that is provided to investors (independent or tied-agent) but it is also influenced by the dimension of the company the advisory works for, together with his grounding and training.
Holding The Purse Strings: Regulating Financial Planners, December 2009, by the Public Interest Advocacy Centre, This is all encompassing review and regulatory recommendation of the financial planning industry including compensation.
"PIAC calls upon the “fee-only” financial
planners to self-organize or for the senior
financial planner self-regulatory
organizations to create a service mark or
designation to
allow consumers to easily find a fee-only
planner. This organization then can
participate in negotiations with provincial
regulators to provide training and
certification
services for the province to achieve the
required standards under each provincial
regulatory system."
click here for the full report
When you look at the
evolution towards the fee model in the U.K.
and Australia, it was not industry driven,
but imposed by a regulatory or licensing
body. For the fee model to become prevalent
in Canada you would have to have some
Government intervention, though with the
current lack of a central regulator, that is
unlikely to happen anytime soon.
Financial advice fees debate to continue, The Sidney Morning Herald, November 2009, by Ruth Williams, Late on Monday, the bipartisan (Australian) parliamentary inquiry recommended that the Government work with industry to develop the ''most appropriate mechanism by which to cease payments'' - such as commissions - from product manufacturers to financial advisers.
