Press Release 

The Financial Adviser Market: In Numbers 5.0

24th May 2017

The Association of Professional Financial Advisers (APFA) has today published ‘The Financial Adviser Market: In Numbers 5.0’. The report, the latest in APFA’s annual series, provides a comprehensive overview of the UK financial adviser market and the trends within it.

Chris Hannant, Director General of APFA, said:
“It has now been four years since the dramatic changes to the market that followed the Retail Distribution Review and the number of advisers has remained steady, although still below pre-RDR levels. While turnover has increased in recent years, pre-tax profits have remained continued to fall to their lowest levels since 2010. Retained profits in the advice market increased since 2015 to £127m, but this remains less than 3% of revenues.

“It is in everyone’s interests to have a thriving and profitable advice market as only then will new firms be encouraged to enter the market and existing firms have the capacity to invest. Although we welcomed the aims of the Financial Advice Market Review (FAMR), we believe that it missed the opportunity for the urgent and radical change that is necessary to reduce the unfair regulatory burden on advisers. The next government must use the 2019 Review of FAMR to undertake deeper root-and branch reform on the issues of the balance of the liabilities advisers face and the cost and complexity of regulation.”

ENDS