According to new research from discretionary fund manager Heartwood, 43% of financial advisers do not feel confident that the financial services industry has accepted the need to make fundamental changes to its business models.
Of the 178 advisers surveyed, 57% felt the majority of IFAs had accepted the need to make fundamental changes to business models to survive RDR, while 26% felt the majority of their peers had not done so and 17% did not know.
In comparison, the confidence in their own businesses to enable necessary post-RDR changes was much higher, with 57% very confident, 33% quite confident and only 4% not very confident.
Perhaps unsurprisingly those already operating on a largely fee-based model were the most assured, with 87% very confident and 13% quite confident in their firm’s ability to cope with the changes.
Meanwhile, firms still entrenched in commission-based models were less confident in their propensity to deal with RDR-inflicted business model changes, with only 43% very confident and 45% quite confident.
