In its 10th annual survey of the fund management industry, the IMA noted concerns from some of its members that investors who could no longer afford advice following the ban on commission payments may not be willing to take on riskier investments without the input of an IFA.
One senior fund management executive, responding anonymously to the survey, said: “If people don’t have advice, my experience has been that, rather than going into riskier assets, most are actually recklessly conservative and will sit in cash for 30 years rather than choosing to take a bit of risk which they could actually bear.
“If we get out of the habit of using an IFA and we no longer have those links, that’s going to be extremely damaging to the industry in the long term.”
Fund managers also expressed reservations about the way in which pan-European and international regulation was being implemented, warning it could breed fragmentation and protectionism.
IMA chief executive Richard Saunders said: “The IMA is currently contending with more than 35 different pieces of regulation which impact the asset management industry”.
Source: FT Adviser. Read full article here.
