Of sales, guidance and advice

For those who haven’t yet read the latest interim paper on the Retail Distribution Review, “guided sales” is service with some help and persuasion, probably offered by an institution selling a limited range of products, and “advice” is whole of market and subject to professional standards. Guided sales may or may not be, legally speaking, advice. Clear yet? Frivolity aside, the FSA’s paper has the potential to open the door to a whole new kind of service; differentiated from advice, especially in the costs of its delivery, which could be transformational for the market. This is what the...