Armchair critic: what we need is a new model sector

There is plenty of noise about how the Retail Distribution Review (RDR) has trimmed adviser numbers and created the orphaned client phenomenon. But the importance of this short-term drop is being way overdone – the advisers who fell off the list were not usually fully occupied, and most of those remaining have normally got enough capacity to pick up the slack from those who exited. The big contrast is between the current modest numbers of authorised advisers and the comparatively vast legions of salesmen who used to roam the streets rewarded by high indemnity commission, plus the tend...