According to a report conducted by RS Consulting on behalf of the Financial Services Authority, 50% of the all Retail Investment Advisers (RIAs) already hold at least one level four qualification, while a further 39% were studying for one at the time of the survey.
An additional 4% of RIAs planned to begin studying towards the qualification, which means 93% of all RIAs are already qualified or plan to become so.
Over 91% already had qualified or expected to by December 2012, before RDR comes in, while 2% do not know when they will qualify and 1% expects they will qualify after RDR.
Advisers working for banks or building societies and tied advisers are showing less convincing progress, with only 36% of bank or building society RIAs and 29% of tied RIAs appropriately qualified so far.
Directly Authorised and Employee Benefits Consultants have progressed the furthest, with 68% and 63% of each respective group hitting the qualification standard.
The study also researched the number of advisers planning to leave the market before the 31 December RDR implementation, and found just 8% of RIAs intended to cease retail advice after the proposed date.
A comparable survey in 2010 showed a similar percentage, suggesting the "early leaver" rate had not increased, according to the report.
As expected, the early leaver group includes a "disproportionate number of RIAs over 60, with 35% of early leavers over 60.
The report said some were unwilling to acquire additional professional qualifications for a role they think they have been performing to their clients’ satisfaction for years.
Additionally, while those leaving the industry are predominantly advisers of long standing, their income levels are typically not high, suggesting advisers with large numbers of clients and/or high levels of activity do not comprise a big proportion of early leavers.
