Financial services - is it in safe hands?

My previous blog appears to have offended a couple of readers - notably Phil of Nelson and gratou from Beach Haven - and for that I am 100 per cent ambivalent.

I much preferred the response of St Johns resident Steven de Jong, who is obviously a man of good taste.

But back to Phil and gratou who seem to have grabbed the wrong end of this stick. I was not arguing against regulation of the financial services sector; it's getting regulations, let's hope they work.

Will the adviser Code of Professional Conduct work? I don't know but it's better than nothing.

The Code also has a much stronger chance of being effective if the public, at least those who have a financial adviser or think they might need one, engages with it, by which I mean, read the damn document.

I would argue that very few people understand exactly what their financial adviser does - here's a chance to find out.

People today are more than ready to question the actions of medical professionals - do I really need to take that antibiotic, doctor, when my neighbour told me this homeopathic concoction would do the trick - but not so much with the people who handle their money. I think they should but from a position of knowledge (even a little helps).

It's not brain surgery. And even if it was, wouldn't you like to understand something about the professional skills of a person who was about to cut your head open and fiddle with the contents?

You may not need to approve the brand of scalpel but wouldn't you want assurance they had steady hands and clean fingernails?