The FCA has revealed that the number of financial advisers has risen by over 1,000 since last year.
The number of UK financial advisers increased from 21,496 to 22,557, the regulator reported in November. The total number of individual retail financial investment advisers stood at 30,600 in November. This was comprised mainly of:
- Working at financial adviser firms: 22,557
- At banks and building societies: 3,672
- At discretionary investment managers: 1,944
The advisers belonged to 5,307 companies in total, including:
- Financial adviser firms: 4,504
- Banks / building societies: 43
- At discretionary investment managers: 198
The FCA said the caveat was that these figures were based on returns submitted to it by firms and so it was dependent on firms updating the information.
Officials said they were planning to consult on bringing this data request within the RMAR, which they believe will lessen the potential for data weaknesses. As of October 2014 there were 31,153 RDR advisers in the UK, according to FCA figures using a different recording method.