Does RDR really matter?

Maybe RDR does not really matter at all. Perhaps everyone in the financial services sector and the accompanying industry of media commentators has got completely the wrong end of the stick.

Maybe RDR is just one of those moderately important but far-from-seismic events that does not really make that much of difference to anyone. This slightly alarming conclusion is, in part, based on a slow accumulation of discussions with advisers. Obviously there is much jockeying for position and a lot of strategic reviews going on among the major players. Equally, there is an awful lot of bad feeling out there in adviserland, targeted at the FSA and especially its rather onerous micro management of professional competences, but, by and large, most advisers I talk to seem to have mov...