Guidance should supplement the normal complaint handling rules but should not introduce a review process. It is important that the procedures for assessing a complaint should not incur costs which are disproportionate to the resultant outcome. AIFA welcomes the fact that firms will be able to take a flexible approach to each case and follow their own judgement whilst retaining the principles of guidance. It is important for both consumers, and the industry as a whole, to ensure that the regime. But regulators must also take into account the fact that IFAs are, for the most part, small businesses with limited resources at their disposal. visit website to learn more : Valuations QLD

In addition, they must also recognise that a good deal of the information that IFAs may need in order to deal with complaints, is held by third parties. AIFA’s suggestions for improving the guidance will help IFAs respond more efficiently to complaints. AIFA is also publishing today its response to the FSA’s CP70: Mortgage Regulation - the FSA’s High Level Approach and its response to the Mortgage Code Compliance Board’s consultation paper on updating its registration rules. These problems do not exist in the IFA market and the FSA must ensure that it does not create problems for those who want to find independent advice.

As far as enabling tied agents to sell stakeholder holder pensions and CAT marked ISAs, the FSA has ducked the key question of how the tied agent will select the most suitable product and provider for a consumer from the new extended range available. There does not appear to be a requirement (similar to the one that exists for IFAs) for the tied agent to fully justify the decision making process. In its paper, the FSA has not identified any additional costs for further training for tied agents to enable them to be able to advise on new products.

The FSA may say it is keen to ensure that consumers end up with the right product but AIFA is not convinced that its proposals will deliver this. On the proposed complaints procedure, AIFA believes that consumers should not be put in a position where the buck can be passed between the representative’s company (for complaints about advice) and a different product provider (for complaints about the product).