Executive summary; scroll down for the programme

Telling it as they see it: Garry Heath and Steve Farrall;  two straight-talking stalwarts of the financial advice sector

This very special symposium has been arranged to provide two long-established figures in the financial services space with a chance to talk openly and bluntly, “no holds barred” as it were, about the many failings of and the many flaws within the UK’s financial services regulatory framework. To say they’re “not fans” would be to put it mildly.

In the unlikely event that you don’t know them:

• Garry Heath is Director General of the Impartial Financial Advisers Association. He has been immersed in the UK’s Financial Services regulation since it started in 1986;

• Steve Farrall has equally strong, forthright and critical views; based on his first-hand experience of operating within the regulated environment since it began, through running his advisory firm WFW in Ipswich for over thirty years.

Garry and Steve, like many in the advisory ecosystem are fed up and frustrated by the way things are; and they are desperate for change.

Whether you agree with everything, something or nothing that they say, one thing is certain – from their point of view the situation we have today is wholly unacceptable and simply can’t go on.

Garry and Steven feel that:

• The UK’s financial regulatory system has failed to protect the public from systemic risks such as the Banking Crisis of 2008, which cost consumers and taxpayers over £500bn.

• The UK financial regulatory system has also failed to protect consumers from scammers and other forms of fraud; for example, the Connaught Fund £135m, London Capital & Finance £237m, Equitable Life £5bn, HBOS £245m, RBS £15bn and so on – there’s a disturbingly long list of scandals that have all happened under the Regulators’ watch

• The UK taxpayer is not getting value for money from the regulatory framework  – it costs the UK taxpayer around £1.35bn across the various regulatory bodies to deliver services that simply fail to deliver

• Consumers are being misled into thinking the regulator is on their side; they will explain the details and expansion of regulation and why it is failing to achieve what it is meant to be doing

• We need to establish whether/how to protect consumers from “their protectors” and whether the development of regulation as we know it today has actually created a body that:

• • Is operationally unmanageable
  • Has no accountability
  • Is opaque
  • Is attempting to do far too much
  • Is too easily hijacked by powerful firms and other vested interests
  • Is more interested in its own wellbeing rather than those it is supposed to be serving

In the first half of our symposium we are going to be focusing on the problems from the perspective of Garry and Steven; in the second half we will be having an open discussion on whether the problems they have described are real or imagined; and if they are real, what we could, should and arguably must be doing here and now, to stop the rot.

If, like us, you’re concerned that the UK’s financial regulatory framework is failing, don’t miss this one!

…especially if you like people to “tell it as they see it.”

Brace for impact!