As for partnership with the Post Office – most of the village ones have been closed and Lochgilphead itself has no Post Office at the moment.
The mobile van meant to cover has been off the road for the past two weeks.
It just leaves those who cannot use online banking and have no mode of transport with little option but to leave the bank. And at a time when we are trying not to travel around – does paying a cheque in count as an essential two hour round trip?
Lynne Milne
The cost of advice
Regarding your article ‘Clients “gobsmacked” at FSCS fee hike’ (Sep 30).
Good for Mr. Harvey, and respect to his clients who were ‘gobsmacked’ at the level of Financial Services Compensation Scheme fees. This is something all advisers should do.
There are still those in the advice community, at the regulator, in government and wider commentators who bleat about ‘the advice gap’. Sure, the less well-off are excluded. Financial advice is an expensive business. If you do not have the price of the ticket, you can’t go to the match.
If there is genuine concern about those who are excluded from the process, then it is within the ambit of the politicians and the regulator to do something about it.
The continuing refusal to contemplate a product levy is just illogical and obdurate. The costs are born by the advised anyway in the form of higher charges.
Harry Katz
HA7 Consulting
‘Strange’ appointments
Regarding the appointment of Adrian Grace as chairman of 7IM (‘7IM appoints ex-Aegon boss Adrian Grace as chairman’, Sep 18).
What a strange decision by 7IM; in all the time Mr Grace was at Aegon its service standards for IFAs deteriorated rapidly.
Peter Stone
Compensation rates
I have been reflecting as to what would have produced the best financial outcome for lower risk consumers over the past 20 years. The surprising answer is to have received bad advice – a successful claim would yield an eye-watering 8 per cent a year compound guaranteed return.
The compensation interest rate has remained the same for several years and can considerably inflate the claim value. It dates back to before the financial crisis when base rates were around 6 per cent and looks increasingly difficult to justify in a world where base rates are 0.1 per cent.
A very simple way to help reduce the cost of levies, while still producing a fair consumer outcome, would be for this rate to be 2 per cent over base, which would be in line with where it was originally.
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