Advisers are always keen to know what their peers are doing in terms of business strategy and how that strategy fits with their overall approach to providing advice. Providers, who wish to maintain or win market share, are always eager for intelligence about the market too. The FCA has now provided some valuable intelligence with publication of the research which underpinned the recent FAMR final report. It obtained responses from 233 advice firms across a wide range of business sizes and types.
We recommend reading the full report. Yet the research has also left us asking a few questions – prompted by the stats in the pie chart below which gives a breakdown of revenue by advice area.
Investment comes in at 42% in comparison with pensions at 21% and retirement income at 16% in revenue terms. At Space we would have liked the FCA to interrogate the data a little more. For example, many of these clients’ must be receiving broad advice about accumulation and then placing it within a range of wrappers including pensions and ISAs.
Is there therefore a bit of a false distinction between the 42% investment and the 21% pension revenue figures?
For that matter, where does income drawdown sit within these categories? Arguably, income drawdown has a combined purpose of income generation and capital growth.
We also think auto-enrolment might require its own slot too.
Finally does the chart above sit at odds with how many advisers’ evolving business models in terms of offering lifetime planning and indeed holistic advice on a client’s total wealth including to some extent property wealth?
However, if we take the chart and the stats at face value, the implication is that advice is still focused on accumulation certainly in terms of revenue, rather than income or capital preservation.
It certainly gives us pause for thought when we talk about a typical IFA.
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