Like many financial planners, Robert Reid finds the shifting goal posts of regulatory changes tiresome.
But he argues they’re fundamental to lifting the reputation of the industry and atoning for the scandals of the past. Those scandals that may have been caused by a few unscrupulous and unethical advisers but, as he notes, the stain has a way of spreading to affect the reputation of the entire fraternity of planners.
“It’s easy to bitch and moan about regulation, and it remains an ever-present concern, but we have to remember as an industry that we have brought this on ourselves,” he says. “It’s because of our own behaviour and if we want to move towards self-regulation of the kind they have in other industries, such as accounting, then we have to earn the public’s trust.”
While this means a degree of flux and uncertainty as regulatory frameworks change and laws introduced, it also means the industry is flushed of any lingering snake oil salesmen.
“It’s a shifting landscape, but the upside is as the regulations get tighter the people who are in it just to make a quick buck will get out and will leave it to the rest of us, who want to turn the industry into a profession,” Reid says.
