Advisers said the benefits are particularly notable in terms of improving the professional nature of advice and the adviser business model as well as in transparency around fees.
But, advisers remain concerned about not only increasing costs and regulation but also the growing advice gap.
Of the 644 financial advisers surveyed by Schroders during November, 56% said they saw RDR as a net positive, up from 41% the previous year, while 22% were neutral.
However, that has not stopped them from continuing both to move away from smaller clients and outsource at least a part of the portfolio management element of the relationship with those clients that remain.
Some 44% said they currently outsource part of the portfolio management function, up from 40% in 2013. However, only 14% outsourced more than 50% of their assets under management, while another 14% said they only outsource up to 10%.
Of those that already engaged in outsourcing, 68% said they have increased the proportion of assets outsourced over the course of the last year, and 93% said they will continue to outsource the portfolio management function. Of the assets that are outsourced, financial advisers surveyed said they put much of the money with wealth managers and, to a lesser degree, multi managers, with both platform-linked managers and ratings agencies, also seeing some benefit from the trend.
According to the survey, 49% of financial advisers have already segmented their client base by size or resource, while 18% plan to.
A total of 86% of those surveyed, already offer different levels of service based on size or revenue, while 18% admitted that they have “formally” asked small clients to leave, Schroders said.
The survey also indicates that many of those clients won’t necessarily have a significant number of other options when it comes to finding advice. While 40% of respondents said they currently offered either execution only, or basic advice services, the chance of new options coming to the market is diminished by the fact that 88% of those advisers that don’t currently, offer such services do not intend to do so in the future.
The use of passive investment vehicles has also gone up, the survey found. Some 60% of advisers surveyed said they currently use passive vehicles, up from 60% in 2013; 59% increased their use of the instruments over the last 12 months and 30% expect to grow that portion further in the coming months, up from 25% last year.
