RDR – from commission bias to service bias?

This morning’s research from Which?, that reveals continuing pressure within the big banks to sell, lays bare one of the fundamental shortcomings of RDR:

Losses result from poor performing products, not commission-biased choices between products.

For so long as advisers and sales staff are incentivised by sales, there will be mis-selling of inappropriate products. I rather suspect that the adviser charging regime will increase pressure on advisers to ‘recommend something’ as they struggle to justify the up-front fees to be charged to the client. Advisers who charge their clients considerable sums and then tell them to ‘leave it in the bank’ will not survive in business for long.

Only three more weeks to go and we will start to see the impact.