Financial services to receive total shake-up from coalition

The new Government has announced plans for a total shake-up of financial services regulation to conclude in 2012, which is also the deadline for IFAs to meet RDR requirements.

Advisers will be worried that during the next two and a half years, with many final RDR rules still to be announced, the FSA will be dismantled and control of their sector will pass to the new independent Consumer Protection and Markets Authority. In a major about-turn, FSA chief executive Hector Sants will also stay on at the regulator to lead the transition to the new system, as well as head the creation of the Prudential Authority, which will be a subsidiary of the Bank of England. Despite saying earlier in the year he would stand down this summer, Sants will now become the first c...