I have a confession to make: I am not a big fan of commentary pieces or their internet-era equivalent, blogs. Both have grown increasingly popular thanks to the commoditisation of news and the explosion of social media. But how many journalists really manage to produce exceptional, thought-provoking arguments and debates, expressed in beautiful language and accompanied by the appropriate dose of humour, week in and week out? Very few. That's why I feel the journalist should simply report the facts accurately and fairly, and leave the opinions to the reader.
That said, as deputy personal finance editor it has on occasion fallen to me to write the Smart Money column. This week will be the last time I do so, because after five great years within FT publishing, I will be leaving the Investors Chronicle for pastures new. They have been five of the most fascinating years to work as a financial journalist in the world's leading financial centre.
I joined the FT Group in July 2007, a month after the FTSE100 reached its pre-credit crunch high. The Financial Services Authority (FSA) had just published a discussion paper on the Retail Distribution Review (RDR), an idea first announced a year earlier. What a discussion it kicked off! Since then there have been countless debates, proposals and discussion papers around adviser charging, commission payments, platform fees and the need for those giving advice to be better qualified.
Just a few months later, the full force of the credit crunch washed across the Atlantic. I found myself interviewing 'Rocket' Ron Sandler about turning around Northern Rock. The Lehman's debacle followed and four years later I was still covering the ensuing fallout in the structured product industry. Then came near-zero interest rates, quantitative easing (QE) and the seemingly never-ending eurozone crisis. The debate about RDR continued even as public trust in the financial services industry - from banks to fund managers to independent financial advisers (IFAs) - was shaken to the core.
Whether the implementation of the RDR - the deadline is now less that six months away - will rebuild that trust is open to debate. What it will do, however, is establish a clear link between the advice and service provided by the adviser and the charge levied on the consumer. No longer will advisers be able to blithely recommend the investment with the fattest commission. Instead, they'll be required to provide whole-of-market advice on a fixed-fee basis, and hold the necessary qualifications to boot.
Many IFAs have already adopted this business model, while others have chosen to outsource the investment side of their business. The December 2012 deadline won't cause too much disruption to them. But for others, it will spell huge change, ensuring that investment advice is independent and no longer hidden within the charges of the product that you buy. Will it put an end to the legacy of mis-selling that has for so long blighted the industry? I have my doubts. The growing prevalence of Sipps fraud (see Beware of Sipp fraudsters) shows that the regulation of advice needs to stretch further than just investments.
Plus, there is a very real risk that advice will become more expensive and simply out of the reach of many. Those falling into the so-called 'advice-gap' will turn to the ever-increasing amount of information freely available on the internet, make use of execution-only brokers, or simply be sold products by banks.
Banks have sold their customers plenty of rubbish down the years - think payment protection insurance and interest-rate swaps. Execution-only brokers cannot give advice. And of course you should never believe everything you read on the internet.
But you can and should believe what you read in the Investors Chronicle. With a proven reputation that has lasted over 150 years, it will have an increasingly important role to play in the post-RDR world, informing readers about investments, tax, pensions and broader financial planning as well as scouring the markets for investment opportunities. So to all those loyal Investors Chronicle readers, who have long taken ownership of their own financial affairs, and who often have a healthy scepticism of the 'advice' industry - please keep reading. The savvy team of writers that make the publication what it is will always give you the facts, but never tell you what to think.
