Criticisms of advisers made by the chief economist of the Bank of England have been countered as “unhelpful” by head of the Association of Professional Financial Advisers (APFA) Chris Hannant who has asked for a “prompt clarification” of the comments.
Bank economist Andy Haldane, who was speaking at the New City Agenda annual dinner, said that, like himself, advisers had “no clue” when it came to making sense of pensions and that the opinion had been formed during countless conversations with experts and financial advisers.
In an open letter to Haldane, Hannant concedes that the economist’s point had probably been made to allude to the increasing complexity of financial products but that making this point by implying that regulated financial advisers do not understand pensions was “unhelpful”.
He said: “Becoming a financial adviser requires a commitment to life-long learning and keeping up to date with industry and market developments as well as changes to legislation and regulation.”
He added that in an environment where people need access to financial advice more than ever – making comments that might diminish trust in the financial advice profession was “counterproductive”.
The letter went on to say that “if advisers really had no idea what they were doing, it would imply that the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) was not fulfilling its role properly which would be of concern to the Bank’s Financial Policy Committee”.
Hannant also said that he would welcome prompt clarification of Haldane’s comments and that he would be “happy to meet” the economist at his earliest convenience to discuss how financial advisers, the FCA and other regulatory and government bodies can work together to enable consumers to access [the right sort of] professional financial help in an era of unprecedented policy change.
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