Independent financial advice

bambino said:
I'm not for 1 second saying that all bank employed fnalcial advisers are perfect, but they are nowhere as bad as you are both making them out to be, some can infact offer some excellent, impartial advise which is not based in any way on the amount of commission pai by a particular company. I picked NIB as a good example as they do not have an insurnace company tied to them, they can and do deal with any number of companies.
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Don't misquote me. Where did I say they are bad? Saying they are not independent is not the same as saying they are 'bad'. The thread is about independent financial advice, not multi agency intermediaries.

I have no opinion either way on NIB as a multi-agency intermediary (aside from my earlier comment), but when dealing with anyone who works on a commission basis, I would assume that they will push whatever product/provider that will earn them the most commission (otherwise they won't last very long in their job).

Any chance you picked NIB as an example because you have some connection with them, or perhaps their parent, Den Danske?
 
If
1) I was a manager in a bank or other financial institution and
2) I had hired someone to work as an "independant" financial adviser and
3) he/she consistently ignored our products and proposed products from competing financial institutions

then one of 3 things would happen

1) I would get him to stop doing this and to propose our products mainly (or better still only) or
2) I would get rid of him or
3) I would be fired

I think it's pretty clear what would happen !
 
Is [broken link removed] the relevant info about the NIB independent financial advice service? Perhaps it is the case that where NIB don't themselves directly provide a particular product (e.g. life assurance, pensions etc.) and they are not tied agents of any particular provider of such products then their in-house advisors will provide independent advice? However if it comes to products that NIB do provide (e.g. savings/current account banking etc.) then I would be surprised if the advisors recommended other providers' products.
 
ClubMan said:
Is [broken link removed] the relevant info about the NIB independent financial advice service? Perhaps it is the case that where NIB don't themselves directly provide a particular product (e.g. life assurance, pensions etc.) and they are not tied agents of any particular provider of such products then their in-house advisors will provide independent advice? However if it comes to products that NIB do provide (e.g. savings/current account banking etc.) then I would be surprised if the advisors recommended other providers' products.
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They are not tied agents, fair enough. They are a multi-agency intermediary. Their status means that they can only advise on products that they have an agency to sell. Obviously if they don't sell their own assurance and pension products, they cannot advise you to buy them. But that doesn't mean they are independent in this regard-which is what the OP was looking for in the first place.

From the IFSRA definition:

MULTI-AGENCY INTERMEDIARY
A Multi-Agency Intermediary is a generic term that describes investment business firms that may provide the following services;
  1. receiving orders in investment instruments and transmitting those orders to product producers from whom it holds an appointment in writing, and
  2. providing advice only on the investment instruments available from each product producer from whom the intermediary holds an appointment in writing, and or
  3. receiving orders in insurance policies and transmitting those orders to Lloyds brokers or other non-resident intermediaries with whom it has an agreement to refer proposals for insurance.
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The only real interest I have in this discussion is to make sure that people don't believe that NIB provide independent advice, which is the impression that has been created by bambino.

When I look at the IFSRA S.31 register (list of AAs, Multi-Agency interemediaries etc.), I don't actually see NIB registered as a Multi-Agancy Intermediary, so I presume that is in the individual advisors who are registered as such
 
CCOVICH said:
They are not tied agents, fair enough. They are a multi-agency intermediary. Their status means that they can only advise on products that they have an agency to sell. Obviously if they don't sell their own assurance and pension products, they cannot advise you to buy them. But that doesn't mean they are independent in this regard-which is what the OP was looking for in the first place.
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Does anybody know precisely what companies the NIB MAIs deal with/don't deal with?
 
ClubMan said:
Does anybody know precisely what companies the NIB MAIs deal with/don't deal with?
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The IFSRA list is useful in that it tells you what providers each AA/MAI holds an agancy with, but as NIB are not included (at least I can't see them), I can't say. You would need to know the names of the MAIs employed by NIB to answer that question.
 
To answer your query, my connection with NIB is that I hold my accounts there. Have done for a very long time. My employer also banks there. I have built up an excellent relationship with the staff in my local branch aswell as with the business bank and financial advisers. I have an excellent knowledge of financial servies due to the fact I am qfa qualified and am well aware of the difference between AA and MAI.
To answer the question about what companies NIB don't deal with, I'll get the full list, I have it on a TOBL which I'm sure is filed in work.
In realtion to the commision query, as I previously stated, in general the financial companies such as Irish life, eagle star, friends first pay the same amt of commission for similar products. If you take a product such as Life cover, possibly with SIC, the adviser can not advise you to go with 1 company simply because they pay more commission than another company, to suggest otherwise is absolutly absurd. They will of course suggest the cheapest as long as they can stand by the claims record etc of that company, at the end of the day the customer will decide which company to use.
To answer the query about savings/current a/c's. these are bank products not dealt with by financial advisers who deal with regulated products. They are sold by unqualified branch staff. These members of staff do not hold the necessary qualification to advise on prducts belonging to another bank.
To answer about selling priducts of another bank: NIB are still paid commission by BOI, AIB etc and therefore the bank has no difficulty with advising on these products as long as it is on the interest of the customer and as I previously stated the customer will make the decision not the adviser.
 
Multi Agency Intermediaries employed by NIB are not independent. That's all I want to clarify.

bambino-does your connection with NIB also extend to the fact that you are perhaps employed by their parent company, Den Danske?
 
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