Lack of consultation undermines Adviser Ratings
A financial planning dealer group head says the owners of the Adviser Ratings web site should have sought to consult with the planning industry before launching the venture.
Madison Financial Group general manager, Guilio Russo has used his company's newsletter to question the value of the Adviser Ratings service in circumstances where it had been established "without any consultation or dialogue with advisers or dealer groups".
Russo said he was sceptical about how successful the web site was likely to be and that it might have been better accepted by financial planners if there had been more consultation.
"I'm sceptical and dubious about the value and credibility of the service — admittedly that's partly due to ignorance about how it really works but it would have been nice to have had some sort of dialogue — any dialogue — with them beforehand," he wrote.
Elsewhere in his newsletter, Russo pointed to the Adviser Ratings web site claims that it had "16,000 financial advisers already listed on the website and awaiting consumer ratings and feedback" and the fact it had later been revealed that the financial adviser listings had resulted from a commercial deal with research and publishing house.
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