AMI to turn attention to protection

27 July 2011 | By Natalie Thomas

The Association of Independent Financial Advisers, parent of AMI, announced in December 2010 that the trade associations were to undergo a strategic review to ensure they were fit for purpose.

Robert Sinclair, director of AMI, says although feedback about AMI was positive, there were some suggestions that it should have more knowledge of the protection sector. 

Sinclair says: “There was a desire from the AMI board for us to do more in the insurance protection arena. Perhaps we need to build our skills, expertise and commentary in this part of the landscape.”  

He says it is looking to create a protection interest group and will ask AMI members to put some names forward.

Following the review AIFA will be establishing a college-based system which means each sector will have its own college which will decide the agenda for that sector. This means the AMI board will move from being the agenda setter to providing governance.

AIFA’s and AMI’s boards will still exist and will elect a member of the mortgage college to sit on AIFA’s board.

Sinclair says it has not yet decided what will happen to its sister trade association, the Association of Finance Brokers.

It had planned to merge this with AMI, but now that the regulation of secured loans has been pushed back to 2014, it has decided against that at present.

One of the issues that was raised in the review was whether AMI should open up its membership to single-tied advisers, but Sinclair says this would create a conflict of interest.

Members also wanted to see AMI do more to promote the good job that intermediaries do, but he says this could deter it from its main job of setting policy and compliance.

Sinclair says: “While there are a great deal of people trying to pull us in that direction when they sit down and think about the finance and resource implications of that they  draw breath again.”

AMI also received feedback from the Financial Services Authority which told the trade body that it is respected at Canary Wharf  but if it wanted to improve it could do more research as regulators respond to factual data.

On the subject of fees, Stephen Gay, director-general of AMI, says there is an acceptance that AMI cannot be a gravity-defying organisation, and if members expect successful outcomes these will have to be linked to the amount of resources it has.

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