Conflicts of interests in financial advice: the European Regulator as an unintentional ally of the big banks?

In an ideal world there would be no “inducements”, and product providers would definitely not be paying commissions – whether directly or indirectly- to so-called “advisors”.

But we are not in an ideal world, we are in the real world. In the real Continental European world, ESMA’s proposal 10i for MiFID II implementation1 looks like a further boost to the big integrated salaried networks, typically “advising” and selling only in-house products.

We ask the European Regulator to at least find a way to address the bigger conflict of interest issues in relation to advice provided by the dominant salaried networks in Continental Europe.

Please read the full press release here.