Contrarian: What will investors pay for good financial advice?

CONTRARIAN

This week I am going to pull together three recent stories that tell us a great deal about the fragile ecology of the financial services sector.

They all describe a new financial landscape that is emerging super fast and where the budget available for proper independent financial advice will be severely limited, even if we decide to collectively increase our long-term savings rates. The good bit of news comes in a headline from a CoreLogic survey – “Retirement income expectations drop dramatically in the past two years”. It would appear we have all woken up to the reality we have been collectively living beyond our means over the last decade and maybe we might be able to get along in retirement with a little less than the planned...