The ideas of personal financial empowerment and independent financial advice grew up hand in hand. But they are mutually exclsusive concepts and ill-matched bedfellows.
Now that we have the means to do it ourselves, we need to be allowed to. But the financial services industry is still stuck in a pre RDR time-warp and cannot properly accomadate self-service. Financial services companies may recognise that the RDR has happened but if you are a consumer, you might not have guessed it.
These observations come after a day spent with large insurers in Edinburgh, you know the ones, we saw 3 in 4 so as long as I dont mention any by name, none can claim I am talking about them!