Financial advice harder to come by if you have £30,000

As financial advisors have had to become more transparent with their costs, it is becoming harder for them to agree fees with clients who have less than £30,000.

Independent financial advisors are expected to consider all forms of regulated savings and investment products for their clients, which includes peer-to-peer lending.

As a result of the introduction of new rules last year that ensure advisors are more clear about how they're paid, 13% of advisors have stopped offering services to over 20% of their clients because they are no longer commercially viable.

The research, which is from the online investment platform Rplan.co.uk, also reveals that, since RDR, one in three financial advisers have established or increased a minimum portfolio size for clients. One in four advisors now require over £30,000, with most of those requiring in excess of £50,000.

Stuart Dyer, Rplan.co.uk’s CIO, said: “Investors are clearly finding it more difficult to secure financial advice and given that our findings reveal 56% of advisers are planning to stop servicing some existing client accounts over the next 12 months, the advice gap is likely to become bigger.

rPlan arranged for 137 professional financial advisers to be interviewed by PollRight during September and October 2014 for the research.

Sources: rPlan