Three-quarters doubt move to fees will succeed

Just 26% of more than 4,000 businesses surveyed by the Financial Services Practitioner Panel believe the move away from commission and toward fees will be attractive to clients not used to paying advisers upfront for their services. Most firms expressed a "generally held view" the move would disenfranchise the less wealthy from advice. "I cannot quite see how people who are not used to paying upfront for advice - they will have paid through a commission which perhaps looks invisible - will react to us giving them a bill for say £250," said one adviser quoted in the report. Furtherm...