19th February 2009

FSA TCF meeting feedback

We were very disturbed to get this report from one of our IFA members in regard to their experience at one of the recent FSA/ TCF meetings. It is clear that despite constant assurances that small, directly regulated IFAs are not to be singled out for a beating up, the reality is quite different.

We reproduce this IFA’s observations to see if this is a pattern that has been repeated around the country.

“It was the Monday when the bad weather started (and I had to abandon my car and walk as the weather and ice on the roads defeated me) but I felt that non attendance would be a black mark.

The FSA men were all be-suited and had stayed in the hotel overnight so were well fed and comfy. The attitude was amazingly smug, arrogant and condescending. We were divided into groups by coloured badges, depending upon mortgage or IFA and the group I was in were all directly authorised IFAs.

We were assured that contrary to rumour the FSA were not trying to close the small IFA down!

But the workshop that followed was frightening because the analysis of the example scenarios discussed was that every action or decision taken by an IFA business was suspect and could be questioned and queried. The assumption that came through was that we were guilty in thought word and deed. It seemed the attitude was that no matter what a firm did  it was probably for some nefarious purpose and what the FSA had to do was interrogate it until the firm realised it was guilty.

Never has the 'Have you stopped beating your wife' or 'Catch 22' scenario been so blatant. It was very reminiscent of the 'game' effected at management training groups in the 90's where a group was divided into managers and workers; and the mentality shift took place when the managers distrusted the workers as lazy & shifty etc. The paradigm seems to be that all IFAs are guilty of failing and NOT treating customers fairly and all that has to be done is punish them.

I am truly not being paranoid or over reacting when I say that the image of the Gestapo, as seen in war films, was recreated by this meeting as it is with almost all communications with the regulatory authorities- in all their forms in the UK today.

There is no understanding that many IFA companies or businesses are struggling to make ends meet now in order that they can continue to do their job of advising the public. The time involved in compliance and regulation means that the time cost is overwhelming and continues to expand, a factor of which the FSA and the UK regulatory authorities in all their forms seem to be oblivious.

Maybe they are so busy dreaming up more regulation and building their empires they just don't care that they could be killing off the goose that funds them? To say that I am dispirited and tempted to give it all up is no exaggeration”.

Can we have your feedback on such meetings either via the forum or if you wish via help@panaceaadviser.com. If this is more that an isolated experience, which we doubt, something needs to de done about it and soon.