Advisers need to consider scale of funding for Aifa
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Aifa director general Stephen Gay has admitted that advisers’ appetite to fund the trade body is “patchy” and says the resources needed are beyond what IFAs are currently prepared to pay.
At the Personal Finance Society Tomorrow’s Client conference in London last week, held in partnership with Money Marketing, one delegate asked Gay how Aifa is going to make its voice heard as the responsibility for financial services regulation increasingly shifts from the UK to Europe.
He said: “Where you had 12 staff to make an impact on a much smaller number of stakeholders, you now have a huge number of stakeholders. There is a danger that your voice becomes a whisper, not a shout.”
Gay said Aifa will have to either increase its funding or reduce the scope of what it does.
He said: “Now a vision has been set out for Aifa, what is the appetite to fund that? I think it is patchy. We have got a lot more work to do to make sure the community recognises the need to speak with a voice and recognises the need to fund that. The money is not going to come from thin air.
“The scale of resources needed to run an effective trade association here and in Europe is beyond what the IFA community has been prepared to fund. Whether it is satisfied with that limited ambition or whether it wants more is something it will need to think through and address.”
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