Reform at last

A decade ago I wrote here about the way financial advisers are paid. I told you how, instead of giving you a bill, your adviser is allowed to sell you investment products in exchange for a commission from the product provider plus a cut of your assets every year for as long as you continue to hold those products. So if you buy an investment fund from an independent financial adviser (IFA), he will receive a payment up front and then another payment every year,  whether you ever have the good fortune to come across him again or not. All these payments will come out of your money — you just won’t know much about it.

Think of it, I said at the time, as like buying a house through a search agent, but instead of just paying him a fee for finding the house, you also pay him another fee equivalent to the costs of his family holiday in Cornwall for every year you live in the house thereafter.