Speaking at The Mortgage Event in Reading, Countrywide’s financial services director told delegates that a lot of advisers that are going to be leaving the full financial planning space once the RDR comes into play.
Stockton said: “We cannot forget about RDR. The reason I say that is because the average age of an IFA is 56 according to AIFA, they’re estimating that between 10 to 20% of that population of IFAs will exit that industry. Where are they going to go? They’re going to go into an industry that they don’t think is as stringently regulated as the industry they’re leaving.
“This means that by the end of next year we could get a little bit of an influx in mortgage consultants. The great news is that you guys will know the business a lot better than they do but this will nonetheless increase competition in our industry in 18 months time. We’ve got to be ready for this and make sure we don’t get caught out and overtaken in the market.”
Stockton added that face to face business will remain the predominant channel for distribution but that the use of technology, telephony and online will become more important in the next few years.
“The way in which the younger generation consume media is so different now with online and social media playing a key part, therefore it’s only a matter of time that these channels become more popular with consumers. But we as an industry have got a good ten years or so to get use to these types of channels.”
For further analysis, watch Nigel Stockton’s interview at The Mortgage Event
