http://www.subramoney.com/finance-for-non-finance-people-workshop/

Fee based Investment counseling is the cure to all problems, so say the Learned Men. They ought to be correct, because all channels are also saying it.

Now I met a ‘Good Intentions’ – we will only do what is good for the client financial planning company. They wanted their ‘planners’ to be able to talk to trustees, fund managers, directors about equity returns, mean, variance, goal setting, …..and generally be seen to be far more competent (significantly more as the MD said) than the general relationship manager in the market. So far so good.

They had very little training budget but they had done a cut paste from a leading course on fund management and had done a good job at that.

They wanted to move the ‘sales’ guy from selling to advising – they had enough ppt to prove to me how this will happen over the next 12-18 months. Voila they said “Our xxxx sales personnel will migrate to becoming an adviser”.

I said: “All nice to say things but in an industry where it is much easier to earn sales commissions why would you be in the fee business?”

He said: After some time we will also sell products like life insurance, P M S,….

I was stunned. Is the ‘Fee-only adviser’ dead or was he not born at all?