Do you know which is better, independent or restricted financial advice? Spoiler alert: there’s only one right answer to this… Independent advice is far superior, and we’ll gladly explain why.
What is ‘independent’ financial advice?
As the name suggests, an Independent Financial Adviser (IFA) will offer you impartial, objective advice on financial products and services. This means they will carry out research across the whole of a particular market to find the right solution to suit you personally. They won’t be biased towards any particular financial company or product, and they won’t base their recommendations on fees paid by other companies to encourage them to sell their products. If you get your advice from an independent financial adviser or financial planner, you can feel confident they are working solely for the benefit of you, and no-one else.
Being independent is a highly-valued status in the advice industry. To call ourselves independent, financial advisers must be able to prove their status to the UK regulator of financial services, the Financial Conduct Authority. If you’re not sure whether an adviser is independent or restricted, ask them. A financial adviser who can only offer restricted advice must declare this to you before making a recommendation.
How does restricted advice compare?
It all comes down to the options that the financial adviser can give you. Being ‘restricted’ means an adviser can only recommend products from a limited selection or product range, not from the whole of the market. Here’s an example that highlights the difference from a client’s perspective.
You arrange to meet a financial adviser to set up a personal pension. An independent financial adviser will research every relevant pension available within the UK market to find the one that they believe is best suited to your needs. They will then make a recommendation and provide you with the reasons that justify their decision.
With a restricted financial adviser, however, the recommendation process is different. The adviser might tell you that they are only able to suggest a pension from one pension provider, or from a select panel of a handful of different pensions. Your options could be drastically reduced, because they won’t have access to the widest choice of products available.
Why is independent better?
Using a restricted financial adviser doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll be getting ‘bad’ advice. All financial advisers must have a similar minimum level of qualifications and meet the same standards. It just means that the choices available to you may limited, and this might not be in your best interests.
And, sometimes, getting advice that isn’t independent can be a problem. Restricted advisers will often work for a much larger financial services company – in which case they are probably keen to sell you one of their products. Alternatively, they may call themselves restricted because they only focus on one type of financial product (pensions, for example). So, if the restricted adviser recommends a pension to you, you can never be entirely sure whether it is the right pension to suit your needs, or just that he gets paid to sell this particular pension to you.
Independent financial advisers, on the other hand, are so much more than just salespeople. We believe that financial planning is more important than just recommending where you should put your money. It’s our job to find out about your goals in life, look at your personal circumstances and help you decide on the best course of action. In fact, recommending products is just a small part of what we do. We tailor our advice to suit your needs, and we will never recommend a product that we don’t think is 100% right for you, and will always give you clear and comprehensive reasons behind every recommendation we make.
Are independent financial advisers getting harder to find?
You may be wondering why advisers choose to be restricted, since being independent is clearly better for clients? The simple answer is that it is more expensive to be independent than it is to be restricted.
Being restricted makes it easier to run an advice business. A lot of smaller financial advice firms have chosen to become part of larger networks, which give them a panel of investments to sell to their clients. This makes it cheaper for them to run their business, because they can minimise their costs, outsource some of their functions and don’t have to spend so long carrying out painstaking investment research.
Being independent, on the other hand, means going it alone. This can mean paying more for professional insurance, training, and other regulatory burdens.
Don’t forget, most financial advice firms are themselves small businesses. Some have been hit hard by the coronavirus. In fact, the number of independent financial planners operating throughout the UK is shrinking. We’re not quite becoming an endangered species yet, but it’s sad sometimes to see that there are fewer of us out there flying the flag for independence. Because we believe people deserve the opportunity to get independent advice.
As for us, we have no plans to switch from offering independent financial advice to restricted. We believe that being independent means we can keep delivering better quality advice – and better quality outcomes – for our clients. We’re proud to say that all of our financial planners are highly qualified, have years of experience of financial planning – not just selling financial products – and are proud to call themselves independent.
So, if you’re ever in doubt over independent or restricted advice, remember this: a financial adviser who is independent will proudly tell you that fact, whereas an adviser who is restricted is legally required to disclose it. That should tell you everything you need to know about which is better.
If you are interested in discussing your financial plan or investment strategy with one of our experienced financial planners at FAS, please get in touch here.
This content is for information purposes only. It does not constitute investment advice or financial advice.
