Financial Advice

[fideldyfee]

Can you get free impartial financial advice from the bank? Im with RBS if that makes a difference.

[WendyS]

Banks will normally only recommend their own financial products. I believe the law was changed recently regarding different categories of independent financial advisors but you will probably be offered a wider selection of options from a financial advisor than a bank. As regards free advice, I doubt whether this will come free from a financial advisor who will either collect their fee in commission from any financial product you buy, or by your paying a fee. However, if you are in financial difficulties the Citizens Advice Bureau would probably be your best free starting point.

[vicars]

I assume you are talking about advice as to investment or financial services products? I have to say that you will not be given free impartial advice from a bank. They will have a selection of products to choose from and they tend to try to sell the products that fit in with the right advice but that favours the seller be it points or commission. This is a blunt answer but more than often correct. However I must add that this advice may be to some degree biased but can often be very good advice in any event. Financial institutions try to place themselves as the buyers friend and will make recommendations from a list of providers that they have chosen as being good value and that give value for money. They will not try to recommend a poor performing fund that pays them the most as they can easily be challenged as not giving best advice. However the fact that they make money from their products may mean the best value products that pay least to the bank may be left out so a visit to a fee based IFA who does not take commission may be best but you may end up paying more for the advice than it would cost in fees from the provider in the first place. The solution may be to get someone to make a recommendation but as we all know a referral is double edged and does not mean you will get the best service/deal/advice etc. There really is no substitute for you doing your homework but at the end of the day if it is an investment type product the investment return is not guaranteed based on past performance but where it is cost based (eg life assurance) it is easy to show you what is cheapest (from a possibly limited number of providers).

[dzug]

Free, yes. Impartial, unlikely.

[vicars]

Just as an example of a bank being not impartial if you wanted to invest some money it would be unheard of for the bank to recommend National Savings despite the tax efficiency of these products, though I am sure advisers may mention them occasionally.