According to Next Wealth’s excellent Financial Advice Business Benchmarks report, published in October, the average cost of ongoing advice across the wider industry is now 63.7 basis points (bps) down 4.7bps compared to last year.
The past year has flown by. Since I wrote my November 2021 cover story about consolidation in the IFA space, a lot has happened. Perhaps the most headline-grabbing deal of 2022 was Aviva’s purchase of Succession Wealth for £385m. Aviva’s thinking was obvious it wanted to boost its presence in the advice market.
I was surprised to see 81% of advisers continue to follow the percentage charging model. Surely, the drop in fund values means a consequent fall in income. And how many firms can afford that?